Cape Town - Four months and four days after being released from Pollsmoor Prison, Marthinus van der Walt was arrested for murdering Stellenbosch academic Professor Louis Heyns.
Van der Walt, 33, his brother Sarel, 42, and Malmesbury businessman Juan Liedeman, 37, on Monday made their first appearance in the Somerset West Magistrate’s Court in connection with the killing.
It emerged the brothers would be charged with murder and robbery, while Liedeman faced a robbery charge.
In a phone interview, regional Correctional Services commissioner Delekile Klaas said Marthinus van der Walt had been released from prison after serving a five-year sentence for a car theft case.
“That’s when his term ended,” he said.
Klaas said that while serving his five-year term Van der Walt had applied for parole, but this was turned down as he did not have a fixed address.
He said Van der Walt had previous convictions.
On Monday, before the Van der Walt brothers and Liedeman appeared in the dock, patients and medics who had worked with Heyns, a paediatrician and Stellenbosch University lecturer from Welgelegen, silently lined up outside the court building holding white candles.
The group of about 60 then went to the spot where Heyns’s body was found - a shallow grave in Strand - and lit candles, which they placed, along with flowers, around the spot.
Afterwards, they walked to the nearby beach and gathered in a circle.
Heyns’s body was found on Thursday after he went missing on May 22.
The charge sheet in court on Monday shed some light on what happened to Heyns after he left his brother’s home in Somerset West at 8.30pm.
It said that on May 22, near De Beers Avenue at Somerset Mall, Heyns had been kicked and hit with closed fists.
The charge sheet said that in the same vicinity he had been robbed of his Peugeot vehicle, a gold ring, a cellphone, a pair of takkies, an identity card and a Cape Consumers Card.
During Monday’s court proceedings, legal aid attorney Ilza le Minnie, representing the Van der Walt brothers, said Marthinus van der Walt had been released from Pollsmoor on January 26.
Since his incarceration for the Heyns case, she said, Van Der Walt told her that he and his brother had been threatened and she had tried to see if they could be detained somewhere other than Pollsmoor.
Le Minnie did not elaborate on Marthinus van der Walt’s release from the prison in January.
Earlier during proceedings, State prosecutor Diedre Hindley asked that the case be postponed for a week as the matter had been referred to the director of public prosecutions for written confirmation.
However, William Booth, representing Liedeman, said this written confirmation was to indicate the schedule of offences faced by the accused.
Booth asked what charge his client faced and Hindley responded that it was robbery.
Booth found this unlikely.
He said Liedeman was arrested last Wednesday and since then he had not seen a warrant for his client’s arrest.
But Booth had seen a warrant, dated after Liedeman’s arrest, to search Liedeman’s business premises in Malmesbury.
Booth said this indicated his client likely faced a possession of stolen goods charge - which was either unscheduled or a Schedule One offence.
“This case, with regards to the murder, doesn’t link my client,” he said.
Booth said Liedeman was a married businessman who had lived in Malmesbury all his life and had no pending cases nor warrants of arrest out for him.
“My client, Your Worship, is not in any way linked to the robbery of this vehicle,” he said.
The case was postponed to Monday.
Cape Times