Cape Town - While the Malmesbury chop shop owner says he unwittingly came to be in possession of the Peugeot vehicle that belonged to murdered paediatrician Dr Louis Heyns, the National Prosecuting Authority alleges in papers placed before the Western Cape High Court this week that the investigation tells a different story.
The NPA alleges that Juan Matthew Liedeman destroyed critical evidence in the Heyns murder investigation. Liedeman says in his affidavit that police initially told him he was being arrested for possession of Heyns’s Peugeot 308.
Liedeman said neither of the brothers – Marthinus van der Walt (who is accused of Heyns’s murder along with his brother, Sarel) – were friends with him, and denied he was in any way involved in Heyns’s murder. It was only when he appeared in the Somerset West Magistrate’s Court on Monday that he discovered that he had been charged with the “alleged robbery of the vehicle”.
In a separate affidavit, deputy director of public prosecutions Johannes Niehaus alleged that it emerged that Liedeman, after receiving information from a police officer, “proceeded to dismantle and destroy parts of the robbed vehicle”.
He added that some parts were burnt and others discarded in a tanker on the business premises.
“It is submitted that the actions of (Liedeman), by dismantling and destroying the robbed vehicle, amounted to him assisting the perpetrators of the robbery and murder to hide their crimes.”
The three men are to appear in the Somerset West Magistrate’s Court on Monday.
Weekend Argus