WeeklySA_AdminBashed: The victim had his ankles and wrists bound with a rope, his head bashed and strangled
By Monk Nkomo
Three white men who brutally assaulted and murdered a farm worker who had gone to fetch water from a chicken farm in Mamogalieskraal , Brits three years ago, were this week convicted of premeditated murder in the Gauteng High Court in Pretoria.
‘’ The accused had no regard for human life and did not hesitate to take the life of another human being. There is no doubt in my mind that they planned and had the intention to kill the deceased, Mr. Dumisani Phakathi ’’, said Judge Portia Phahlane.
Delivering the scathing judgment virtually, the Judge, who is facing corruption charges and have been barred from entering any court building in terms of her bail conditions, said the three convicted men – Jaco Kemp, Louis Coetzee and Gert van der Westhuizen – knew what they were doing. They had acted in common purpose to brutally Phakathi.
The three had pleaded not guilty. Instead, they tried to exonerate themselves from the murder scene by blaming one other – a version that was rejected by the Judge who ruled that they acted in common purpose. Although there was no evidence that Coetzee took part in the assault, he was in agreement with the actions of two of his colleagues.
Their conviction followed the bizarre murder of Phakathi at or near a chicken farm in Mamogalieskraal, Brits in North West on or about September 16 or 17 in 2023.
Earlier evidence before court revealed that the farm worker, who posed no threat to the three men, had his ankles and wrist bound with a rope, his head repeatedly bashed, brutally assaulted, kicked and strangled by the three white men when he simply went to fetch water from the farm.
The chilling account of the severe assault and murder of Phakathi, was relived during argument by both the State and defence counsels of the three men during their earlier court appearance last year.
According to evidence presented in court, the three unlawfully and intentionally killed Phakathi who had gone to the farm carrying a plastic container to fetch water. The cause of death was ‘’ blunt force head injury’’.
The three, who were having a braai, confronted Phakathi when they saw him at one of the gates on the farm . He was asked what he wanted and after explaining that he only came to fetch water, all hell broke loose. He was brutally assaulted, dragged to a storeroom where the beating continued. He was also subjected to a severe kick that made him look like a ‘’ headless chicken,’’ the court heard.
His head was repeatedly bashed, assaulted with clenched fists, kicked and locked inside a storeroom where he was further assaulted until he lost consciousness and later died due to the relentless blows to the head and face.
Phakathi’s gruesome and lonely death was unfolded in court while the three men tried to conceal his brutal death until their intensions came to an abrupt end, thanks to a routine stop and search operation by members of the South African Police Services who stopped a Nissan NP 200 bakkie on the Brits – Thabazimbi road at around 2am on September 17, 2023.
Loaded on the back of the bakkie driven by one of the two convicted men , were black garbage bags. A closer look by the police revealed Phakathi’s bloodied legs protruding from one of the bags. His head was also covered in one of the plastic bags. Phakathi had been murdered. Both the driver of the bakkie and his passenger were then arrested. After further investigations, another suspect was apprehended.
During his testimony, Kemp accused Van der Westhuizen of kicking Phakathi and assaulting him with clenched fists. He (Kemp) distanced himself from the murder. However, he admitted that he was the person who bound Phakathi’s wrists and legs with a rope and loaded his body on the bakkie after his death.
Coetzee had also distanced himself from the gory murder and said he could not help Phakathi or call for assistance because he was afraid of his two friends.
The post-mortem results submitted in court by a doctor, revealed that Phakathi may have been strangled. The possibility of suffocation could also not be ruled out. There was a black and white rope, 10mm in width , which had bound his wrists and ankles together from behind the body.
There were associated ligature marks around the wrists and ankles. There was also a blue torn T-shirt around his neck which was tied in front of the neck with a fixed knot.
There were ligature marks, ranging from 20 – 40mm around the neck. There were also fresh lacerations on the head and left eyebrow, a fresh bruise on the left cheek and left side of the lower jaw.
Presenting his argument, Adv. Lawrence More, for the State, submitted that the assault on Phakathi which led to his death, had not been disputed by the three men. Both Kemp and Van der Westhuizen had also taken the victim to the storeroom on the farm where the assault continued.
Coetzee claimed that he did not take part in the assault but More argued that he had aligned himself with the crime because he observed the brutal assault and did not help the victim or call the police.
‘’ Instead he even opted to assist in trying to dispose of the body’’, More submitted.
All three, he added, acted under the doctrine of common purpose – a legal principle used to hold individuals liable for crimes committed by others, particularly within a group.
Adv. Seja Rakobela, who represented Van der Westhuizen, submitted that there was no dispute that the assault on Phakathi took place. All the accused, however denied taking part in the crime. They pointed fingers at each other with both Kemp and Coetzee blaming Van der Westhuizen and claiming they had received instructions from him.
Kemp had earlier testified that he did not report Van der Westhuizen to the police because he feared him. Coetzee ‘’portrayed himself as an angel but he took part by even loading Phakathi’s body onto the bakkie’’, Rakobela said. He (Coetzee ) took part in trying to conceal the body. He was there when the assault started.
Kemp, he added, was an unreliable witness. Coetzee was present throughout the assault on Phakathi and he was actually braaing meat while Phakathi’s body lay nearby.
Adv. Adrian Thompson, who appeared for Coetzee, argued that his client did not partake in the assault on Phakathi and therefore could not be convicted for his murder.
He could at least be found guilty for allegedly trying to conceal Phakathi’s body or allegedly being an accessory after the fact.
While the three men continued to point fingers at each other, all of them evading responsibility for the dastardly deed, the only reminder that could still be tattooed in their minds is the exhibits presented in court of the grim pictures of the bloodied body of Phakathi. With his contorted face, apparently in severe pain, some of these pictures are too grim to be published.
Both the defence and the State are expected to respectively lead evidence in mitigation and aggravation of sentence next month before the three convicts are sentenced.
