Durban - Two years ago, Merebank woman Charmaine Naidoo was kidnapped from her home by two robbers, stabbed, strangled and dumped.
On Wednesday the Durban High Court found that the house robbery was just part of a plot orchestrated by Naidoo’s common-law husband, Inderesan Maistry, to have her killed.
Acting Judge Burt Laing found Maistry and his co-accused Mandlenkosi Jobe and Bongani Manyathi guilty of murder, robbery with aggravating circumstances and kidnapping.
Judge Laing said the State had proved that Manyathi had taken part in the robbery as he had been pointed out at an identity parade by Naidoo’s teenage daughter, Rohaena.
Manyathi’s DNA had also been found in a cooldrink bottle in Naidoo’s car, that she had been driven in by the kidnappers.
He found that Rohaena, despite being only 15 years old, had impressed the court during her testimony.
She had testified that she had SMSed Maistry and asked him to come home during the robbery.
Maistry disputed this and said Rohaena’s SMS had told him about the robbery and that he should not come home.
Judge Laing said that from Rohaena’s evidence, it could be inferred that Maistry and Naidoo had problems in their relationship and that he had made threats before her death.
The judge said that after Rohaena’s SMS, Maistry made contact with Jobe from a different cellphone number and stayed in contact with him throughout the night.
Cellphone evidence also showed that in February, before the murder, there were more than 100 calls between Maistry and Jobe.
He said there were questions about what the calls could be about, and explanations by both men were not clear.
Judge Laing said it was surprising that Maistry had not tried to call Naidoo on the night of her murder and that he did not go straight home after he got Rohaena’s SMS.
The judge said Jobe had initially said he had been home on the night of the murder, but had changed his version after cellphone evidence showed he had been in the Wentworth area.
Judge Laing said Maistry’s version that he thought Rohaena had been playing a prank did not correspond with the phone calls he had tried to make to her after she sent the SMS.
He said looking at the evidence, he concluded that Maistry had contacted Jobe after Rohaena’s SMS because he wanted to alert him that she had a cellphone with her.
While there had been only circumstantial evidence linking Maistry to the crime, judge Laing said the only inference that could be drawn was that Maistry had arranged with Jobe to have his wife killed.
The court found that both Manyathi and Jobe were unimpressive witnesses and had been evasive.
The case was adjourned to Thursday for sentencing.
A fourth man, Sifiso Joyisa, pleaded guilty to Naidoo’s murder in April 2014 and is serving a 40-year sentence.