Over four days the defence for Christopher Panayiotou, accused of orchestrating the murder of his schoolteacher wife Jayde, called a mere four witnesses to testify at the Port Elizabeth High Court.
And State prosecutor Marius Stander indicated on Friday that he would at a later stage bring an application to re-open the State’s case.
Stander said he intended to call Senior Advocate Zelda Swanepoel and Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions Advocate Malherbe Marais.
This after defence witness, Advocate Selvan Gounden of the Directorate of Public Prosecutions, denied giving guidelines to the police for the taping of a secret video which led to Panayiotou’s arrest.
According to Stander, Marais and Swanepoel had communicated to Gounden that a section 252 An authorisation was not needed for the sting.
Stander also showed the court Swanepoel’s diary entry which noted the conversation, while cellphone records apparently place the sequence of calls between Gounden and his colleagues.
Stander said that Marais had communicated specific guidelines to Gounden on how the operation should take place. However, Gounden, appearing for the defence, denied any such detailed conversation.
According to Stander, police were told that permission for the sting was not needed, however, they needed to follow specific guidelines.
It is the state’s case that self-confessed middleman Luthando Siyoni participated willingly in the undercover police operation which saw businessman Panayiotou seemingly implicate himself in his wife Jayde’s murder.
On Friday, Laurika Booi was called and asked only a few questions by defence advocate Terry Price.
Booi was Panayiotou’s employee at his Inet Lounge in the Cotswold shopping centre complex.
The court previously heard that the business was registered in her name.
Booi testified that police had taken a DNA sample from her during 2015.
“They said there was blood of a woman found at crime scene [at Infinity] and wanted to establish if it was my blood,” said Booi.
She said that at the time she was working at the Inet Lounge.
In less than 30 minutes Booi was excused from the stand.
Court adjourned until October 16.
The defence has indicated that Panayiotou’s mistress, Chanelle Coutts will also testify but it is not yet clear if the defence will still call a cellphone expert from America as its final witness.
Panayiotou, Sinethemba Nenembe and Zolani Sibeko are on trial for conspiracy to kidnap, rob and murder Jayde on April 21, 2015.
– African News Agency (ANA)
