A magistrate and the Oxford English dictionary dashed murder accused businessman Arnold Terblanche’s hopes of being released on bail when the meaning of “new fact” was painstakingly explained to him on Monday.
For a fact to be considered new, it must be something which did not exist before, magistrate Kriban Pillay said before dismissing the alleged Gqeberha wife killer’s bail application that was supposedly based on new facts.
Pillay said Terblanche had failed to show any new facts, new evidence or prove that new information had come to light after he was first refused bail in January.
Evidence tendered by Terblanche’s legal team included cellphone records, witness statements, email correspondence, transfer documents of movable assets, divorce settlement documents and life insurance portfolios, with the state steadfast that none of this could be considered new.
On Monday, in agreeing with senior state advocate Marius Stander, Pillay said the evidence tendered was either irrelevant or had been available to Terblanche at the time of his initial bail application after his arrest on November 17.
Terblanche can now go back to the high court — if he chooses to do so — to appeal against Pillay’s finding that there were no new facts.
If he succeeds, and a judge agrees that Pillay erred in his judgment, the matter will then be referred back to the magistrate’s court for Stander to argue.
Terblanche is accused of orchestrating the murder of his estranged wife, Vicki, with her boyfriend Reinhardt Leach and his friend, Dylan Cullis, in October.
Vicki was drugged and suffocated with a pillow before being buried on a plot in Greenbushes.
At the time of her murder, Vicki and Terblanche had been embroiled in a bitter divorce and custody battle over their son.
Vicki’s body was discovered by the police on October 23.
She had been reported missing by Leach two days earlier.
Leach and Cullis abandoned their bail applications shortly after their arrests.
Pillay on Monday rubbished Terblanche’s claims that the investigating officer, Colonel Kanna Swanepoel, had misled the court during the first bail application about who the state witnesses were.
Terblanche was first denied bail in January when Pillay found that he posed a flight risk and may interfere with state witnesses.
In March, high court judge Glenn Goosen dismissed his appeal, finding that Pillay was correct in his decision.
On April 7, Terblanche brought the latest bail application based on new facts.
In his founding affidavit, Terblanche claimed there were 33 inconsistencies in the founding affidavit opposing bail by Swanepoel at the time of his first bail bid.
Part of his claims were that he did not have access to his cellphone records, witness statements by those he believed to be state witnesses, voice recordings and other documentation related to his assets and divorce proceedings.
Various statements were obtained by Terblanche’s defence team, including from his previous wife, Natasha Potgieter, Terblanche’s brother, Marius, nephew Ethan, a domestic worker, friends of Vicki’s and a self-confessed drug peddler.
In an attempt to prove to the court that Terblanche was neither abusive nor displayed abusive tendencies towards Vicki, as alleged by the state, Potgieter gave a statement in which she said she had never been assaulted or abused by Terblanche.
Pillay found the statement to be irrelevant, while siding with the state that the allegations of abuse did not necessarily stem from Potgieter, but may be from another former partner, who has not yet been identified.
It is alleged that Terblanche’s second wife ended up in a mental institution due to the abuse she suffered at the hands of Terblanche.
Statements by Marius and Ethan were also considered to be of no significance for the purpose of proving new facts.
Other statements by Pierre Deacon, who claimed to have sold drugs to Vicki, as well as those by a former friend and her sister-in-law also had no bearing on the matter, Pillay said.
Pillay found Terblanche had access to all the information during his first bail application and that the evidence presented during the second bail bid had already been heard.
Transfer documents of movable assets which were put in the name of Terblanche’s daughter, Natalie Nel, which were allegedly misplaced during the first bail application, could not amount to a new fact, Pillay said.
“The English Oxford dictionary defines the word ‘new’ as something that did not exist before.
“The application for bail based on new facts is dismissed and refused,” Pillay said.
A fourth person allegedly linked to the murder, Mario de Ridder Jnr, has since turned state witness.
Terblanche has categorically denied knowing De Ridder and wants a statement allegedly given by him to be made available to his lawyers — a request which the state has opposed.
The case was postponed to July 12 for further investigation.
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