It has emerged that murder accused Christopher Panayiotou’s family have hired a private investigator and have consulted with an IT expert in an attempt to assist their son in the case in which he is accused of orchestrating the abduction and murder of his school teacher wife Jayde.
Panayiotou appeared back in the Port Elizabeth magistrate’s court on Friday where he is currently applying for bail brought on new facts.
Defence Advocate Terry Price dismissed talk of Panayiotou being financially overcommitted as “balderdash” and said that the Panayiotou family had paid massive legal fees thus far.
Price argued that the state did not have any affidavit supporting an alleged motive that Panayiotou had his wife killed because she was a financial burden and was spending too much money.
Price said that the State had misled the court deliberately during Panayiotou’s first bail application which took place last year.
He said that two statements from Chanelle Coutts and Clarishka Kapp were not available to the State during Panayiotou’s first bail application and went on to question how the State came to a motive when these very statements were not commissioned at the time.
Panayiotou had previously admitted to having an extra marital affair with Coutts who was a manager at his OK Grocer store, however, he has insisted that their relationship had absolutely no bearing on the case.
“It does not take an intellectual giant to determine that this court was misled, deliberately so, by the comments of the State that they had these affidavits available at the time, nor did they implicate [Panayiotou] as the State suggested they did,” Price said.
“This court can see for itself from these new facts that it was misled into believing the State’s case was a lot stronger than the State suggested in the first bail application. In short, the State never had a motive, so they created a false motive in [Investigating officer Kanna] Swanepoel’s statement in the first bail application and they did this knowing that this court nor [Christopher] could challenge their false claims at the time,” said Price.
In summary, Panayiotou’s lawyers have argued that since having insight into the police docket, they were now in a position to challenge the State’s allegations that the case against Panayiotou was strong.
Price highlighted that there was no touch DNA linking the businessman to the money handed over to Luthando Siyoni.
It is alleged Panayiotou paid Siyoni, a bouncer at his Infinity night club, to hire hitman Sizwezakhe Vumazonke to kidnap and murder Jayde.
The State alleges that Sinethemba Nenembe assisted the alleged hitman Vumazonke to kidnap and kill Jayde, allegedly at the behest of her husband.
Price also argued that the two statements made by Siyoni were “strongly contradictory”. The defence have made it clear that when the matter goes to trial they will argue for the inadmissibility of such evidence, as they believe Siyoni was beaten into a confession.
Meanwhile, things got heated at court on Friday afternoon when State Prosecutor Marius Stander made light of apparent comments made in hushed tones by Price.
“There is no point saying for f**** sakes,” said Stander to Price.
Stander dismissed the issue revolving around the time in which statements were made by Coutts and Kapp and said details around this had been dealt with before.
Magistrate Abigail Beeton said that she did not envy herself as now she would have to go back to the first bail application and sift through volumes of documentation.
Beeton postponed the matter until June 24 when she is expected to make a ruling which will establish if there were any new facts placed before court.
– African News Agency (ANA)
