Kotze fingers co-accused for rape

16/04/2013 Ina Bonnette (brown top) and her friend looks on as her ex-husband Johan Kotze walks past during his trial at the Pretoria High Court. Picture: Phill Magakoe

16/04/2013 Ina Bonnette (brown top) and her friend looks on as her ex-husband Johan Kotze walks past during his trial at the Pretoria High Court. Picture: Phill Magakoe

Published Apr 17, 2013

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Pretoria - The so-called “Modimolle Monster” Johan Kotze on Wednesday implicated one of his co-accused, Andries Sithole, in an attack on his ex-wife Ina Bonnette.

“I suspect Andries,” Kotze told the High Court in Pretoria.

He was replying to a statement by Francois van As, for Pieta Mohlane and Frans Mphaka - accused three and four.

Van As put it to Kotze his clients believed Kotze and Sithole planned the attack on Bonnette in his Modimolle house on January 3 last year.

Kotze said he saw Sithole in his house a few times the day Bonnette was attacked and confronted him. He had hired the three men to do work at his home.

Kotze is accused of orchestrating the gang rape of Bonnette, and of murdering her son in his rented house. Sithole, Mohlane, and Mphaka are accused of kidnapping, assaulting, repeatedly raping, and attempting to murder Bonnette that day.

Bonnette previously testified Kotze tortured her with various objects before instructing the other three to rape her. She told the court she listened to her son pleading for his life before he was shot.

Van As asked Kotze how - if Bonnette's visit to his house had been unplanned - the men would have had time to prepare the room by tying ropes and cable ties to the bed and hide.

Kotze said it must have been done when he went outside just before Bonnette arrived. He said he was suspicious of Sithole as he found him in the house during the day.

Van As argued that his clients and Sithole were told Bonnette wanted to have sex with black men just before her arrival. He said that when they declined and wanted to leave Kotze became aggressive and threatened them with a handgun.

“You honour, I don't have a handgun,” Kotze said, adding that the ones he owned had been stolen years before.

Both van As and Jan van Rooyen, for Sithole, said their clients were either unable to rape Bonnette or faked it. Van Rooyen argued the men did not steal anything and failed in raping Bonnette. He put it to Kotze that the men gained neither materially or sexually from the attack.

“I can't say anything about it. I don't know what their motive was,” Kotze said.

Throughout his testimony Kotze denied orchestrating the rape or threatening his three co-accused. He also maintained Bonnette was not raped.

“I stand by it today that Ina was not raped. That's not what I experienced.”

Bonnette, who attended the proceedings, shook her head.

Kotze was asked about a letter he wrote to Bonnette while on the run. In the letter he wrote: “The doctors will confirm they were not inside you. It might have looked that way but there was too much tension”.

When asked if he believed what he had written Kotze said he was not himself when he wrote it.

“I did not see that she was raped.”

Van As asked him if any of the men were in the room when Bonnette's genitals and breasts were mutilated.

“These men were not there.”

Earlier he told the court he did not intend killing Bonnette's son Conrad. He was shot and killed in Kotze's house the day Bonnette was attacked.

“I did not have the intention to kill Conrad that afternoon,” Kotze said.

Van As told the court two spent cartridges were found on the floor, and one in the gun, and that Bonnette had testified to hearing three shots.

Van As said the gun needed to be reloaded after every shot, which Kotze confirmed.

Van As said Kotze must have reloaded the gun numerous times.

“I can't remember (reloading),” Kotze said.

“Your Honour, I only heard one shot... I can't remember the events surrounding that incident at all. I know I did not aim at him.”

Van As told the court Conrad was shot twice. Once in the knee and once in the head.

“It doesn't look like you missed much that day,” he told Kotze.

He said it appeared Kotze had intentionally shot Conrad based on his mental state and the letter he wrote to Bonnette.

Kotze read the letter into the record on Tuesday. In it he accused Conrad of coming between him and Bonnette and called him a “silent terrorist”.

“Your Honour, it's not true,” Kotze said, denying the shooting was intentional. He said he had helped Conrad and that they were a happy family.

“I was good for him and boosted him in his studies. It is totally untrue.”

Before Kotze left the court room, he and his daughter Jo-Marie Kotze shared an emotional embrace. Jo-Marie cried as they hugged and kissed.

The trial continues. - Sapa

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