Defence accuses cop of trying to exploit accused’s weaknesses to gain confession – The Mail & Guardian

Joshlin Smith, of, Saldanha Bay, has been missing since 19 February 2024. Image: Sourced

A defence lawyer in the Joslin Smith kidnapping and human trafficking trial told a police officer on Wednesday that he had “taken advantage” of her client’s “youth and vulnerability” by scaring him into making a false confession. 

During cross-examination at the trial-within-a-trial at the Western Cape high court, attorney Nobahle Mkabayi, representing accused two Steveno van Rhyn, told Sergeant Dawid Fortuin that he and Captain Wesley Lombard had “taken advantage of [Van Rhyn’s] youth and vulnerability” during a re-interview session. 

Mkabayi said the strategy Fortuin and his superior Lombard devised in March 2024 while re-interviewing Van Rhyn — who was at first being questioned as a witness to the disappearance of the child — resulted in police saying things that contained “an element of threat”. 

Fortuin denied the accusation. 

The trial-within-a-trial, in its first week of the sixth week of the actual trial, is meant to  determine if the “confessions” made by Van Rhyn and accused number one, Jacquen “Boeta” Appollis, should be admitted as evidence because they were, according to Mkabayi and Appollis’s defence advocate Fanie Harmse, false confessions made because of “torture” by police.

Previous testimony from the doctor who examined both men prior to their police interviews, and the doctor who examined them after the interviews, did not point to any form of torture. 

Part of the strategy employed by the two police officers was to separate the men and tell Van Rhyn that Appollis and Kelly Smith — accused number three, who is the mother of Joslin and the partner of Appollis — were not going to protect him because they were lovers and only concerned about each other’s welfare.

According to Fortuin’s previously-led evidence-in-chief, he also told Van Rhyn that he was embroiled in a serious matter and could face a maximum prison sentence if found guilty of the then six-year-old’s disappearance. 

“I told him he must think carefully and tell the truth so we can find Joslin,” he had said. 

Fortuin said Van Rhyn, when re-interviewed on 4 March 2024, for the first time made mention of a woman called “Makalima” — the sangoma that Joslin was allegedly sold to — who lived in a shack at the Middelpos informal settlement near the shack where Smith, Appollis, Joslin and her two brothers lived. 

Makalima is the name by which Phumza Sigaqa was known to the accused. 

Sigaqa was arrested on 5 March 2024 and appeared in court twice in the early part of the case. But charges were withdrawn because there was no evidence implicating her in Joslin’s disappearance. Sigaqa has not been called a witness and it is unclear if she will be. 

Appollis, Van Rhyn and Smith pleaded not guilty when the trial started on 3 March. 

Joslin went missing from the Middelpos area on 19 February 2024, while in the care of Appollis, and has not been seen since. 

The state alleges that Smith organised for the child to be sold to a sangoma for R20 000.

The court has heard in previous testimony that Lourentia Lombaard, who was accused four before she became a state witness, and Van Rhyn overheard Smith arguing with Appollis the day before Joslin went missing about how Smith was going to sell the child because she needed the money. 

According to Lombaard, Smith offered her R 1000, and Van Rhyn R1 200, in hush money. 

After she completed cross-examination of Fortuin, Mkabayi moved on to cross-examining Captain Philip Seekoei, who was responsible for recording Van Rhyn’s confession on 5 March 2024. 

Seekoei has previously testified that he saw no signs of injury on Van Rhyn when taking his confession. This will form the basis of Mkabayi’s cross-examination.