Durban - It was clear to double murder accused Mathew Naidoo that his two co-accused Nicolette and Hardus Lotter were trying to implicate him in the killing of their parents, he told the Durban High Court on Friday.
The siblings were trying to shift the blame to him as they did not want to take responsibility for their actions, he claimed.
“It is my opinion that they were trying to use me to build a defence for themselves,” Naidoo said.
Nicolette Lotter was trying to make him look like the mastermind behind the murder plot when he wasn't.
The siblings and Naidoo, who was Nicolette's boyfriend at the time, have all denied killing school teacher Maria Magdalena “Riekie” Lotter, 52, and her husband, Johannes Petrus Lotter, 53, the head of a chemical plant outside Durban, on July 19, 2008.
Mrs Lotter was stabbed to death and Mr Lotter strangled with an electrical cord.
The Lotter siblings claim that they were influenced by Naidoo who told them their parents had to be killed and explained how to carry out the killings.
They have said that the original plan was to taser their parents into unconsciousness, then Naidoo, who supposedly proclaimed himself the “third son of God”, would arrive at the house in Westville to inject air into their veins with a syringe to cause heart attacks.
But the plan went awry and the taser did not work. Nicolette said in her statement to police that Naidoo told her to stab her mother and Hardus to strangle his father as it was the will of God.
Naidoo told the court on Friday he knew nothing about a plan to kill the Lotters and had never given any instructions on how to kill them.
He had never said he was the third son of God or that angels and demons spoke through him.
“According to my belief there is only one son of God... I am a normal person.
“God was a God of mercy and He does not ask you to take the life of other people,” he said.
He told the court earlier this week that when he returned to the house he saw Mrs Lotter lying on the kitchen floor and Mr Lotter's body as he left the house.
He said on Friday that he had covered them up with sheet as he did not want to see the bodies.
Hardus Lotter's lawyer, Roland Parsotham, put it to Naidoo that his version of events was a cover-up and he was trying to sugarcoat a bitter pill.
Naidoo agreed that when he saw Mrs Lotter lying in the pool of blood he did not know if she was dead or alive.
“That was criminal, you had the duty of care to establish that,” Parsotham said.
“I was a coward... I should have checked. I was afraid of being in the house. It is the first time I saw something like that. It affects you... I wanted to get out of the house, “ Naidoo replied.
He agreed that the Lotters may have been in need of medical help.
He also agreed that if they had been alive, there was a possibility that they could have been saved.
“You betrayed them and deserted them, “ Parsotham said.
Naidoo kept his head down and then said : “I did not intentionally mean to betray them.”
The case continues. - Sapa