Port Elizabeth – Dirty laundry was aired in the Port Elizabeth High Court on Thursday when a close friend of Chanelle Coutts, described the intimate relationship between murder accused Christopher Panayiotou and Coutts, his mistress.
Clarishka Kapp testified on the third day of the murder trial against Panayiotou, who along with co-accused Sinethemba Nenembe and Zolani Sibeko, are charged with the murder of Panayiotou’s wife Jayde in April last year.
In giving her evidence, Kapp told the court how she, Coutts and Christopher Panayiotou traveled to George in September 2014, to celebrate Coutts’s birthday.
She told the prosecution that the trio slept over for two nights at a hotel and she would sleep in a room on the bottom floor while Christopher and Coutts shared a room on an upper floor.
Kapp said that she was also aware of a “hotel escape” in which Christopher and Coutts spent time together in Summerstrand, situated along the beachfront in PE.
Kapp said that Christopher had told her that he loved Coutts and the feeling Coutts had was mutual.
It also emerged that Christopher was jealous when it came to his mistress.
“Chris was jealous [over] Chanelle, he went on Facebook and observed that she was chatting to someone else, he was very jealous about that,” said Kapp.
Kapp also described that on three occasions the three friends would go over to Jayde’s house for drinks, a braai and take-aways. Jayde was not present and Kapp said she did not know where she was.
Kapp also revealed that Christopher and Coutts together went to a Coutts family wedding and Jayde was not at all involved in that outing.
She said that Christopher bought his mistress expensive gifts such as Polo bags, a watch and a GHD.
During most of Kapps’s testimony, Panayiotou dropped his head and stared at the floor.
Arguably the most embarrassing evidence by Kapp of was a photo she had stored on her phone of Christopher and Coutts in bed together, and five days after Jayde went missing, Kapp said she was told to delete the photo.
“I went to the OK Grocer, Chanelle wanted to speak to me, she was very freaked out because she had been with the police. She was scared her phone was tapped,” said Kapp.
Following the conversation between the two friends, Kapp went home and deleted the photo.
At this point, Advocate Terry Price for the defence objected for the second time, arguing on a point of hearsay, and Judge Dayalin Chetty told Kapp not to refer to what Chanelle had told her as it was hearsay.
It is alleged that Christopher Panayiotou paid Luthanodo Siyoni, a bouncer from his Infinity nightclub, to hire hitman Sizwe Vumazonke to kidnap and kill Jayde.
The State alleges that Nenembe assisted Vumazonke to kidnap and murder Jayde at the behest of her husband.
Siyoni has since turned States witness.
After being driven to a remote area on the outskirts of Kwanobhule where the killing took place, the State claims that Vumazaonke fired two shots through Jayde’s back.
The accused face charges of conspiracy to commit murder, murder, kidnapping, robbery with aggravating circumstances and unlawful possession of firearm and ammunition. The men have pleaded not guilty to all the charges against them.
Panayiotou, who was arrested shortly after his wife’s murder more than a year ago, faces an additional charge of defeating the ends of justice.
Sibeko was the last suspect to be arrested, 15 months after the murder, and has apparently been linked through cellphone mapping to being present outside Jayde’s complex in the days before her murder. However, his exact role in the events is still unclear.
The trial continues.
African News Agency