Pieter Doorewaard (26) and Phillip Schutte (34) are currently applying for bail in a Coligny court after being arrested in connection with the death of the 12-year-old black boy, who later turned out to be a 16-year-old. The boy broke his neck when he jumped from a moving bakkie because he did not want to be delivered to the police.
It seems that the case is now being politicized. Investigators found that Coligny’s protests began over service deliveries, but the death of the child became the critical issue to defend the violent barbarism.
During the bail application, evidence was heard that the two men made a possible witness drunk and threatened him if he told anybody what happened.
The state opposes bail for men and claims that if they were released, it could once again erupt into an explosive situation.
Meanwhile, Mr. Michal Groenewald, leader of the Freedom Front Plus in the Northwest, asked that the law should take its course and that the case should not be politicized.
He confirmed that the protest action in the town clearly began as a service delivery grievance and that individual elements then seized the incident of the boy to incite violence.
He said the community should not be allowed to exert such a great influence on the rise to a court case that a magistrate even fears for his life.
“It’s unhealthy if a situation arises where the community forms a type of “Kangeroo court” outside the court and convicts the people as murderers before the actual case begins.”
“The legal principle that no one is guilty until a court declares such in a case also applies to this case,” said Groenewald.
Read the original article in Afrikaans on Die Vryburger
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