Cape Town -
The Ugandan man who allegedly killed Danish millionaire Preben Povlsen used a stabbing technique he learned as a child soldier.
Francis Kimeze is being tried for murder along with his two sisters, one of them Povlsen’s widowed wife Maria.
Povlsen’s body was found in Table View six days after he was allegedly assaulted in his Gordon’s Bay home in 2008.
In the Western Cape High Court on Tuesday, Kimeze said that when he’d realised Povlsen, 71, was dead, he’d propped up his body and opened Povlsen’s shirt to inspect his wounds.
When questioned by advocate Ken Klopper, representing Kimeze’s other sister Stella Ssengendo, he said that he could not remember using the technique on Povlsen but acknowledged that he recognised it from the wounds.
Klopper put it to Kimeze that the move involved stabbing the victim three times in what was called a “triple tap” – one strike to the neck, another to the chest and the last lower down in the abdomen.
Kimeze, however, did not explain this in his own words, simply answering “ja” (yes) when Klopper described the technique.
According to Kimeze, he was abducted as a child in 1984 and forced to serve as a soldier in the rebel National Resistance Army in Uganda.
They’d been trained, he said, in hand-to-hand combat.
Some of their instructors had been from Korea, while a few others were British.
He maintains that it was a “mistake” that Povlsen died.
Povlsen was murdered on January 14, 2008 and his body dumped in Table View.
He had multiple stab wounds, and a broken neck.
When Klopper questioned Kimeze about the “fear” that had overcome him during the scuffle with Povlsen, he wept as he replied: “You cannot understand what fear is because when people die, they don’t just disappear. They stay with you in your mind, in your eyes.”
Kimeze also acknowledged that he’d been smoking tik and drinking brandy and beer in the garage of the Povlsens’ home shortly before the altercation with Povlsen, which, according to him, was sparked by his smoking.
After he’d inspected Povlsen’s wounds, Kimeze took off the T-shirt Povlsen had on and put on a shirt, which Povlsen had been carrying on his shoulder to wear for a round of golf that morning.
“I can’t really tell you why. It was almost like I wanted to plead with him, ‘come alive’,” said Kimeze.
He’d later wrapped Povlsen’s body in bed linen and plastic and put his body in the car boot.
Kimeze said he’d wanted to run away, but couldn’t do so because Povlsen’s body was in the boot of the car and he hadn’t had any money.
He’d spent the R2 800 Povlsen had given him for renovation supplies on drugs.
Kimeze said a friend had helped him dump the body.
The trial continues.
Cape Times