‘I was threatened into confessing’

From left, Mogamberry Kandasamy is accused of killing his wife Varsha, daughter Melarisa and son Megandren. He has now pleaded not guilty.

From left, Mogamberry Kandasamy is accused of killing his wife Varsha, daughter Melarisa and son Megandren. He has now pleaded not guilty.

Published Jul 27, 2016

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Durban - “I’m here to tell you what I did. I want to tell you the truth and come clean, it is eating me inside.”

This was the alleged confession Mogamberry Rajan Kandasamy made to police shortly after his arrest following the murder of his wife Varsha, 41, daughter, Melarisa, 18, and son Megandren, 17, on December 29, 2013.

However Kandasamy, 44, a former merchandiser at Shoprite at the Chatsworth Centre mall, has pleaded not guilty, and has denied the contents of that statement.

The admissibility of the alleged confession is being heard in a trial within a trial in the Durban High Court.

Clean-shaven, and sporting a shirt and tie, Kandasamy, who is out on R10 000 bail, listened intently to testimonies.

Five family members sat huddled in court, as attorney Siven Samuel said his client was threatened and assaulted to make the confession.

However, Bayview policeman Captain Sathisiven Naidu, who took Kandasamy’s alleged confession, told the court Kandasamy showed no signs of being “frightened or tense” when he took his statement in the privacy of his office in Bayview.

Reading out some of the questions in the statements, Naidu told the court that Kandasamy told him he wanted to “come clean”.

Naidu said he had read Kandasamy’s rights to him and at no point was he made aware that Kandasamy felt threatened.

Naidu said Kandasamy appeared calm and narrated his version of events: “He went through events normally. He had no problem recollecting and was fluent.”

As part of procedure, Naidu said he had asked Kandasamy to remove his clothes and noticed he had a lot of healed scars on his body and no fresh bruises.

Judge Shyam Gyanda intervened, asking Naidu what he would have done if Kandasamy had told him he was threatened.

Naidu responded that he would have sent him back to Chatsworth SAPS and reported the matter to the investigating officer’s line manager.

Judge Gyanda said it was important for people to understand their rights or for these to be properly explained.

“For some it is their first brush with the law and they can be overawed. If he was indeed being threatened, he can be of the view that all police are one. He will believe this, unless he is assured.”

Naidu described Kandasamy as calm, but Samuel responded: “What you read as calm, that is his nature, you can’t come to the conclusion he was not threatened.”

In March, police officer Rama Moodley denied verbally threatening Kandasamy.

During cross-examination on Monday, Samuel told Moodley that Kandasamy would say otherwise.

“The gist of what the accused would say was that at some stage you would ask him who killed his wife, and when he responded that he did not know, you said, 'If he didn’t kill his wife, who did?',” said Samuel to Moodley.

However Moodley denied this.

Samuel also told the court that according to Kandasamy, another policeman, Robin Singh, put a plastic bag over his left arm and twisted it and threatened to suffocate him.

Samuel said Kandasamy also claimed that Singh told him that as policemen they were aware of how to hit him on places on his body where no scars could be shown.

“Out of fear he agreed with the proposition that he was responsible for the death of his wife.”

Samuel also told the court that his client was told how to answer questions in his confession,

“After you were satisfied that he learnt the version you wanted him to say, if he didn’t give that version he would have to come back into your and Robin’s hands.”

Moodley denied that Singh was ever present during the questioning. While Moodley claimed to have signed Kandasamy out of the holding cells and questioned him for about 25-30 minutes, he also told the court that there was no record that he put Kandasamy back into the holding cell.

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