Related Content Uncle denies killing girl at rubbish dump Harrowing testimony in court of little girl’s final hours Child raped, body thrown into sewerage dam, says witness

ALLEGATIONS that the police wanted to throw Calitzdorp murder accused Jaftha Andries from a high bridge were not true, Oudtshoorn detective head Inspector Thys Viljoen has told the circuit court.

Andries, 43, on trial for the abduction, rape and murder of his eight-year-old niece, Charmaine Conradie, in February last year, claimed police threatened to kill him and bury him under a pile of stones if he did not tell them where the girl was, defence attorney Wentzel Botha said.

Andries pointed out certain places and made statements because police had threatened him, he said.

However, Captain Geoffrey Gordon, the commander of the police‘s family violence, child abuse and sexual offences unit in Oudtshoorn, told the court Andries voluntarily offered to show police a “scene near the dam”.

Gordon said Andries told him he had not been assaulted by police. He and two other police officials walked with the accused in the direction of the mountain in Calitzdorp for Andries to point out scenes.

A short while later Andries complained that his back was sore and that the injury was as a result of a tractor accident.

On the way, they came across a snake and Andries started to cry. “He told us we had to turn around as he did not think the warthog hole was that far,” Gordon said.

On their return they came across a warthog hole but Andries told them the hole was old. “He told us the hole in which he hid the child was a fresh one.”

Near the sewerage dam, he pointed out the place where he raped Charmaine and at the dam he showed police the place where he pushed her into the water and later took her body out.

“He told me that he then carried the child into the veld and hid her body in a warthog hole,” Gordon said.

Botha said his client would deny the admissions to Gordon.

Last week, the court heard testimony from a former prisoner who claimed Andries told him he and another man had raped Charmaine and then beaten her to death with a water-filled cooldrink bottle before hiding her body in a warthog hole.

Kannaland Mayor Nicky Valentyn testified that Andries told him he had raped the girl and then pushed her into the sewerage dam, where she drowned.

He had then retrieved her body and buried it in a warthog hole.

The trial continues.