Ugandan child soldier Francis Kimeze has been found guilty of killing a Danish millionaire in his Cape Town home five years ago.
|||Cape Town - Ugandan child soldier Francis Kimeze has been found guilty of murdering Danish millionaire Preben Povlsen in his Gordon’s Bay home five years ago.
Kimeze’s two co-accused, however, dodged a murder conviction after Western Cape High Court Judge Rosheni Allie found that the State failed to prove its case - beyond reasonable doubt - against sisters Maria Povlsen (Preben Povlsen’s widow), 34, and Stella Ssengendo, 43.
Judge Allie found that while Kimeze, 39, committed the murder, she could not say that the Ugandan-born sisters were present when Povlsen, 71, suffered the fatal blows.
Povlsen was stabbed 48 times, his neck was broken and he had been strangled.
Kimeze admitted during the trial that he murdered Povlsen inside the garage, after drinking alcohol and smoking tik with a friend known only as Frank.
But Judge Allie said it was strange Kimeze remembered everything before and after the stabbing but not how he had committed the murder.
“In the absence of evidence beyond reasonable doubt, (Maria Povlsen and Ssengendo) cannot be found to have been accomplices when the murder was committed,” Judge Allie said.
The judge found the sisters guilty of being an accessory to murder after the fact. Ssengendo helped Maria Povlsen contrive the story that her husband was hijacked on the morning of January 14, 2008.
The sisters had also used strong cleaning agents to get rid of the blood stains throughout the house, replaced the carpet inside Povlsen’s bedroom and diluted the blood making it difficult to examine because the DNA properties had been destroyed.
The trio were also accused of aggravated robbery for allegedly taking Povlsen’s car, wristwatch and ring.
But Judge Allie found that the car was merely used to transport and dump the body in the bushes off Otto du Plessis drive in Bloubergstrand.
He convicted the trio of a lesser charge of theft of a motor vehicle. Sentencing proceedings are set to start tomorrow.
jade.otto@inl.co.za
Cape Argus