CAPE TOWN - Wife killer and former property magnate, Jason Rohde, has failed in a last-ditch attempt at freedom when the Constitutional Court dismissed his application for leave to appeal against his conviction and sentencing.
Rohde has started serving his discounted 15-year jail sentence at the Drakenstein Correctional Centre, his attorney Daniel Witz of Witz Incorporated Attorneys confirmed.
“We have no further comment and there will be no further steps as the Constitutional Court is the final court such an application can go to,” said Witz.
The Constitutional Court order read: “(The court) ... has concluded that the application be refused as it bears no reasonable prospects of success.”
Rohde, whose interim bail application had also been dismissed, had started serving his jail sentence during November while waiting for the decision of the Constitutional Court.
This, after his appeal against his conviction and sentencing had also failed at the Supreme Court of Appeal.
Convicted of murder and defeating the ends of justice, Rohde was released on R200 000 bail as he continued in his quest to prove his innocence, but the SCA upheld his conviction and set aside the 20 year prison sentence he was handed by the Western Cape High Court in 2019.
Furthermore, in his several attempts to become a free man again, Rohde had also attempted to get Judge Gayaat Salie-Hlophe recused from his interim bail application while he waited for the Constitutional Court decision, claiming that Judge Salie-Hlophe had been biased against him.
However, Judge Salie-Hlophe in her judgment said the court was perfectly capable of making the right decision, and she was not convinced of the arguments presented by Rohde.
“The applicant cannot, moreover as a convicted accused, dictate the process for this court to consider whether he should be granted his liberty or not, especially as he is equipped with a suspension of an order to undergo direct imprisonment without specified sanctions should he not adhere to the time frames set down for hearing.
“It is the duty of the court to retain control of its processes including the enforcement of court orders.
“To hold otherwise would not serve the interests of justice,” Judge Salie-Hlophe had said in her judgment for interim bail.
Rohde was convicted and sentenced for the murder of his wife after the couple had a dispute in a room at the Spier Hotel in 2016 relating to Jason’s extramarital affair with his former colleague and estate agent, Jolene Alterskye.
Cape Times