The alleged triggerman accused of shooting and killing Jayde Panayiotou is in a coma under police guard after being hospitalised due to an unknown illness last month.
This emerged in the Port Elizabeth High Court in Monday where a pre-trial conference was meant to get underway but was once again postponed.
Christopher Panayiotou is accused of masterminding the abduction and murder of his schoolteacher wife, Jayde, in April last year.
The state alleges he paid a bouncer from his Infinity nightclub, Luthando Siyoni, to hire hitman Sizwezakhe Vumazonke to kidnap and kill Jayde.
Siyoni has since turned State witness.
Cellphone plotting showed that a fifth accused, Zolani Sibeko, was with Sinethemba Nenembe and Vumazonke outside Jayde’s Stellen Glenn Complex in Kabega Park just five days before she was abducted.
The State alleges Jayde was forced into the boot of a hired vehicle, taken to a remote area in Kwanobhule and murdered.
During court proceedings on Monday, State Prosecutor Marius Stander indicated that Vumazonke was in a coma at Livingstone Hospital.
Stander said that a medical certificate had not been issued and the State was awaiting a toxicology report.
“The medical practitioner of accused number two [Vumazonke] has not issued a certificate as he cannot precisely indicate what is wrong with him,” said Stander.
Vumazonke is under police guard.
Last month, a pre-trial conference was meant to get underway but the case was postponed after it emerged Vumazonke had been suffering from an unknown illness.
Judge Glenn Goosen postponed the matter until September 15.
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