Johannesburg - Harvey Isha should not be charged with assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm to Kirsty Theologo, prosecutor Karien Coetzee told the High Court in Johannesburg, sitting in Palm Ridge, on Monday.
Theologo, 18, was assaulted and set alight in an alleged Satanic ritual in October 2011. She died in hospital a week later due to her injuries. Her 14-year-old friend survived the attack.
Isha and three others are on trial for the murder and attempted murder.
Coetzee said Isha should only be convicted for the murder and the attempted murder, as the court had established that he had not assaulted either of the girls.
Isha told the court that he had frozen and watched from behind a tree as Theologo, 18, was assaulted, doused with petrol and set alight at a hill in Linmeyer, Johannesburg.
Prosecutor Karien Coetzee said Isha could have fled and asked for help but he did not.
The court heard that Isha had remained with his friends who were allegedly directly involved in the attack, until the next day.
“If he really wasn’t involved, he should have sought the first opportunity to remove himself from the situation,” said Coetzee during her closing arguments.
Isha had told the court that he finally managed to leave the group the next day when he told them he was fetching his passport and fleeing to the Congo.
Isha, however, is a refugee and does not own a passport.
The court also heard that while the others who had planned to participate in the ritual had worn black clothing on that night, Isha was wearing a dark blue T-shirt.
Coetzee told the court that another of the accused, Courtney Daniels, should not be exempted from any of the charges.
She said Daniels had lied in delivering her testimony.
“All the evidence shows that she was part of the planning and the execution of the planning,” said Coetzee.
“She only befriended Kirsty after she got in on the plan 1/8to kill her 3/8, said Coetzee.
While the group had only planned to sacrifice Theologo, Coetzee said Daniels had agreed that Theologo’s friend should come along with them to the hill.
“She knew the same fate would fall upon 1/8the other girl 3/8,” said Coetzee.
Daniels also claimed that she had later gone to untie Theologo’s friend and she had confronted the alleged mastermind of the plot, Lindon Wagner.
Coetzee argued that none of the witness testimonies supported this.
Daniels, Isha, Wagner, and Robin Harwood allegedly killed Theologo in an alleged soul-selling ritual.
They believed Theologo was the prostitute spoken of in the Bible which was meant to resurrect the beast spoken of in the book of Revelations.
Wagner testified that they burnt a Bible, dripped their own blood into a fire and chanted a poem.
He had wanted to sell his soul in return for power but nothing happened.
Two others, Lester Moody and Jeremy King, earlier confessed to the crime. They were sentenced to 17 years in prison, five of which were suspended.
Sapa