Durban - When a former policeman realised “how stupid” Pietermaritzburg businessman Rajivee Soni was, he agreed to plans aimed at humiliating and embarrassing a local doctor, knowing they could not be carried out.
“It was a way to make money and I took it,” Sugen Naidoo told the Pietermaritzburg High Court on Tuesday.
He is testifying against his former close friend, Soni, who stands charged with arranging the murder of Dr Bhavish Sewram in May 2013. The motive for the killing was that the doctor had allegedly had an affair with Soni’s wife.
Naidoo had told the court about “smear campaigns” and plans he and Soni had “brainstormed” to embarrass and physically hurt Sewram.
He also admitted to being paid by Soni to implement these plans.
These included planting drugs at Sewram’s surgery, attacking the doctor with a high-powered paintball gun, framing him for the sexual assault of two patients and offering former policeman Brian Treasurer R150 000 to shoot Sewram.
Naidoo was questioned on Tuesday by attorney Naren Sangham on the drug plan which had resulted in Soni’s also facing a charge of defeating the ends of justice.
The attorney told Naidoo that to put drugs in Sewram’s drawer in his surgery and then arrest him for being in possession was ridiculous.
“What you are suggesting is totally undoable,” said Sangham, highlighting that there would have been a receptionist and patients in the surgery.
Naidoo replied: “It was totally doable.”
He then went on to talk about how “stupid” Soni was. Naidoo said he knew that the doctor was not associated with people in the drug world.
“I knew planting drugs on him (Sewram) would cause a stir. He was not a drug taker.”
Naidoo said he had been promised R25 000 to plant the drugs and had been given R3 000 to buy them. Although the plan was not carried out, he was paid R10 000.
Sangham said his client denied what Naidoo said – that it was “absolute nonsense”.
The attorney also claimed that there were inconsistencies between Naidoo’s statement and what he had said in court.
“Your statement is a made-up concoction.”
Sangham repeated the details of the drug plan and said: “That is so absurd. For you to say a plan like that was concocted is an insult to our intelligence.”
Naidoo replied: “Not really. These things happen all the time.”
At one stage during cross-examination, Naidoo said Soni had told him during a conversation that he “may put his wife away” while the couple were on holiday overseas.
Sangham accused him of having an “imaginative imagination”.
Soni has pleaded not guilty to the charges, saying that he and his wife made up after the affair and had a child. He also said he and Sewram had ironed out their issues.
The trial continues on Thursday.
The Mercury