The State has closed its case against Zimbabwean, Gift Sibondo, who is currently on trial in the Western Cape High Court for allegedly murdering his fifteen-year-old girlfriend Bredasdorp in May 2015.
Sibondo faces ten charges, including rape, statutory rape, kidnapping and murder.
Elda Japhta’s body was found under Sibondo’s bed at the home they shared in an informal settlement in Bredasdorp, a small town about two hours away from Cape Town.
A forensic pathologist testified during the trial that she had been severely beaten with a blunt object, had severe bleeding on the brain and had been strangled.
On Thursday, State prosecutor Evadne Kortje called her final witness, warrant officer Edmund Abels, who told the court that in June 2014 he was contacted by the Bredasdorp detective branch about an abduction case.
The complainant was Elda Japhta’s mother whose daughter had been kidnapped and only returned home after nine months. The teenager was fourteen years old at the time.
Abels testified that mother and daughter were taken to the trauma room at the Bredasdorp police station where Elda Japhta gave her statement.
He also photographed the teen and described her as short and of slight build.
Japhta was also taken to hospital and examined. A J88 form, used by police in rape cases, was also filled out.
Abels said the accused had already been arrested and appeared in court for the first time on June 23.
The State alleges that Sibondo first kidnapped Japhta in September 2013, when she was just 13 years old. He allegedly forced her to travel with him to Johannesburg, Leeu-Gamka and Swellendam over nine months, during which he allegedly repeatedly raped her.
Abels told the court that he took the teenager to Swellendam in August 2014, and to Leeu-Gamka in September 2014 so that she could point out the places where they had lived.
At one house, the owner approached her and called her by the name “Stella”.
Abels said the case against Sibondo was, however, withdrawn on November 5. He did not explain why it was withdrawn, but just six months later, Elda Japhta would be dead.
She had moved in with him a few months before her death.
Sibondo’s defence lawyer, Riaan Odendaal, told the court that his client had made certain admissions – that he was in a romantic, intimate relationship with Japhta, and that he had had consensual sex with her.
He told the court he planned to make an application to have the two rape charges discharged.
The judge is expected to hear the application on Monday.
