Three more people - including a policeman -have been brought in for questioning over Professor Louis Heyns murder.
|||Cape Town - In a dramatic new turn in the Professor Louis Heyns murder investigation, three more people have been brought in for questioning - including a policeman.
And parts of Heyns’s car have been found and seized too - parts which may help explain how the doctor came to be murdered, where and why.
The 59-year-old went missing on May 22, and his body was found in the early hours of May 30 in a shallow grave on the Strand beachfront. Three men were arrested in Malmesbury.
And now, a week later, police detectives have rounded up three more people, one of them a policeman from Malmesbury. “As part of our investigation three suspects between the ages of 22 and 29 have been taken in for questioning, of which one is a police official,” said police spokesman Captain FC van Wyk.
Of the original trio arrested, Marthinus van der Walt, 33, and his elder brother Sarel, 42, were charged with Heyns’s murder. And Juan Liedeman, 37, was charged with the pair with “robbery with aggravating circumstances” after Heyns’s car was found at Liedeman’s business premises.
The trio were behind bars at Pollsmoor Prison following their court appearance on Monday, when prosecutor Deidre Hindley secured a seven-day remand in order for the provincial Director of Public Prosecutions to rule on what schedule of crimes the trio should formally face. Different crimes are categorised by “schedule” in the Criminal Procedure Act and can dictate key determinants in bail hearings, such as whether the prosecution or defence should carry the onus of proving exceptional circumstances in favour of, or against, granting bail.
But the lawyer hired by Liedeman’s family, William Booth, objected to the request for the remand and late on Wednesday, he approached the Western Cape High Court to challenge his client’s detention. The matter was due to be heard on Thursday.
But this may be complicated by the questioning of three more men in Malmesbury. At the time of publication on Thursday, it had not been explained what charges the new trio could face.
It is believed that parts of Heyns’s Peugeot 308 were also discovered - parts that had been missing when police first found his car 10 days ago.
These are now likely to be sent for extensive tests and analysis, and may help investigators prove where Heyns was murdered - near Somerset Mall, or around the Strand beachfront, where his body was dug up.
The Van der Walt brothers are due to appear again on Monday, with Liedeman, unless Booth has already succeeded in persuading the High Court to free him on bail.
Cape Argus