The college student accused of killing Johannesburg teacher Kirsten Kluyts will remain in custody for an extended time after the murder case was postponed to July.
The suspect, who cannot be named until he pleads, returned to the dock in the Alexandra Magistrate’s Court on Friday following his last appearance earlier in the year.
He was denied bail last December and is facing charges of rape, robbery with aggravating circumstances, and premeditated murder.
Murder case delayed
On Friday, the accused was anticipating a decision regarding the transfer of his case to the Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg.
However, the matter was further delayed after state prosecutor Ayanda Bakana requested for more time to gather evidence.
Magistrate Renier Boshoff postponed the case to 11 July for further investigations.
The suspect’s legal representative, Advocate Itumeleng Masako, has since expressed his dissatisfaction over the latest postponement.
“The Constitution of this country… guarantees a speedily trial without any unreasonable delay. My client has been in custody for approximately seven months and [the state] requested [for a postponement] in January,” he told reporters outside the court.
Masako said the defence had hoped investigations would be completed in the four-month period, but the state furnished the court with a document from the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) asking for the additional time instead.
“Today, we came here with the hope and trust that they have finalized their investigations. We had to wait.
“They came with a letter from the DPP’s office, which says they need three months [and] there’s still substantial investigations that have to be done.”
The advocate stated that he believed that “no investigations were done at all”.
Unfortunately, I did not record the first part of this argument, which was a lot more dramatic.
Here, the accused’s Advocate Itameleng Masako agrees to wait for the DPP. The man in the green shirt is the IO Detective Aubrey Tshisani. pic.twitter.com/e58QndDfRT— Alex Sweet Patrick (@IamAlexSweet) May 10, 2024
Kirsten Kluyts killed
Kluyts, a teacher at Delta Park High School, was attacked while participating in a MyRun event in Sandton on 29 October 2023.
The 34-year-old’s body was found at George Lea Park in Parkmore following her disappearance. Her running shoes, sunglasses, blue T-shirt, pants, and pink cap were taken.
According to the affidavit of investigating officer Aubrey Tshisani, Kluyts could have been killed within eight minutes of her arrival for the race.
The victim was 14 weeks pregnant at the time of her murder.
A preliminary post-mortem report revealed that there were no visible signs of injury to Kluyts’ genital organs although the court was of the opinion that “the absence of external injuries does not exclude rape”.
The accused was later arrested at his student residence on 26 November after the police obtained video footage from the closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras in the vicinity of Parkmore.
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