Durban - A horror grenade attack on a family, which resulted in the death of a young Reservoir Hills girl and her granny has taken a dramatic twist, with the man once blamed for the crime walking away free from a life sentence.
Durban businessman Logandhoran “Yegan” Naidoo was convicted in 2013 on two counts of murder relating to the deaths of 9-year-old Yetska Pillay and her granny, Patricia Pillay, 54. He was also found guilty of attempted murder, possession of explosives, endangering or causing loss of life, and conspiracy to commit murder.
But, in a turn that has left the victims’ family shocked and puzzled, three judges of the Pretoria Appeal Court ruled that the State had not proved its case against Naidoo beyond a reasonable doubt and overturned the convictions and sentence.
However, Judge NB Tuchten, who penned the judgment, said he wished to make it “entirely clear” that the verdict should not be regarded as a vindication of Naidoo’s character.
“I strongly suspect that the appellant (Naidoo) is a criminal who has made a career in violent crime,” he said in his judgment.
“But even the most unscrupulous, evil person may only be convicted when the court is satisfied that there is proof beyond a reasonable doubt that he committed the crimes charged against him. In my view the learned trial judge should not have been so satisfied. It follows that the appellant was entitled to his acquittal.”
The grenade incident, two days before Christmas Day in 2006, took place at a Nelspruit home where Yetska, her father Kevin and other family members were visiting Kevin’s mother Patricia.
According to the judgment, two men - Mohamed Khan and Zameer Khan - had received a hand grenade, allegedly from Naidoo, and travelled in a car he allegedly supplied to the Nelspruit home, believing a woman, Verisha Govender, lived there.
Govender apparently had had a relationship with Zameer.
“Mohamed walked to the house, pulled the pin of the grenade and threw it through the window into the house. The grenade exploded,” the judge said.
The shrapnel killed Yetska and Patricia Pillay and wounded Kevin’s sister Daphne.
Govender, the intended victim, was not in the house.
The two Khans, from Chatsworth, were arrested in 2009, tried and jailed for life the following year.
Turning to Naidoo’s appeal, the judges said the evidence concerning a report which Naidoo had made to a policeman, Warrant Officer Cleo Loganathan, that Naidoo had seen his erstwhile business associate, Sidney Penderam, handing the grenades to Mohamed, was uncontradicted.
Naidoo claimed that Mohamed, a former worker at his construction business, and Penderam, with whom he had had a falling out, had conspired against him and had falsely implicated him as masterminding the grenade attack.
Judge Tuchten said it was very difficult to accept that Mohamed did not want to proceed with the grenade attack because of his protestations, in an alleged telephone conversation with Naidoo, on the grounds of humanity, compassion, guilt or remorse.
“I think his alleged change of heart (to come clean) was in fact a change of strategy. Perhaps the trial judge was correct and the change of strategy arose because Mohamed faced the inevitability of a conviction and he decided to take others (down) with him,” he said.
“Mohamed’s character and the evil nature of the crime is significant. Mohamed was, even by the standards of criminality prevalent in our country, a particularly reprehensible criminal. He was a hired assassin. He took money without compunction to kill a woman against whom he had no personal animosity.”
Judge Tuchten said there was a strong possibility that Mohamed was a professional murderer.
“He agreed to use a weapon which he must have known would probably cause collateral damage. Not only would the grenade harm the target of his assassination attempt, but it would also harm those who were in the vicinity,” he said.
“He took no steps to establish whether his target was in the house. He took no steps to mitigate the risk of collateral damage.”
Mohamed, in his evidence, said he was a member of the gang called Bad Company and that Naidoo was its leader.
“The central question on appeal, therefore, is whether, firstly, the uncorroborated evidence of Mohamed, a single witness and co-perpetrator, a member of a criminal gang, a user of hard drugs and a proven liar in his testimony, both in a related case and the present case, is sufficient to prove the case against the appellant (Naidoo) beyond reasonable doubt,” the judge said. “And, secondly, the evidence of the appellant to the contrary should be rejected as not being reasonably possibly true.”
He said the evidence of a single witness or accomplice must be treated with caution.
Kevin Pillay told POST he and his family were disappointed that Naidoo’s conviction and life sentence had been set aside.
“I am still studying the judgment. My family and I did not get the closure we wanted. We are shocked by the court’s verdict,” he said. “Our pain, anguish and trauma continues.”
Naidoo, incidentally, was an accused in the R31.4 million SBV robbery of 2006. He was subsequently acquitted. At the time it was the biggest cash robbery in South Africa.
POST