A second bid by the accused in a double murder trial to have the judge recuse herself was shot down in the Gqeberha high court on Thursday.
Adding to a seemingly endless string of delays, one of the men accused of murdering two elderly women at a Stella Londt Drive retirement village, brought an application for judge Bulelwa Pakati to step down from the bench.
And after dismissing Luxolo Kruisjan’s initial application, Pakati dismissed his application for leave to appeal against her decision on Thursday.
In his initial application two weeks ago, Kruisjan, through his defence attorney Nash Vandayar, claimed the judge was biased and gave preferential treatment to senior state advocate Marius Stander.
Kruisjan, along with Akhona Mnxeba, Mkhuseli Damaneti, Nomgebisi Slangveld and Nyasha Manyange, are accused of murdering Agnes Burns, 97, and Rosemary Langton, 87, at the St John’s Retirement Village in Sunridge Park more than five years ago.
The women suffocated to death, and their living units were ransacked in October 2019.
The trial has been marred by several delays since it started in August 2022.
In his initial application for her recusal, Kruisjan said he perceived Pakati to be biased.
His argument centred on Pakati’s decision to allow evidence about his initial confession to the police to be led following a trial-within-a-trial.
He claimed further that Pakati had shown a “difference in attitude” between her dealings with Stander and with his attorney, Vandayar, who received “less favourable” treatment.
Stander, meanwhile, called the application a fishing expedition.
He said it was a mere tactic to delay matters as the end of the trial was clearly approaching.
He said none of the other accused seemed to have a gripe with Pakati or her treatment of their respective attorneys.
In the application for leave to appeal, Vandayar said the judge had erred in her ruling by making a decision based on the accused’s perception of the matter, as opposed to what “the reasonable man” would think.
He submitted further that anyone reading the court record would see a pattern of bias against himself and his client.
Pakati found that an appeal before a different court was unlikely to succeed and dismissed the application.
The trial continues on Friday.
HeraldLIVE
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