Daryl Els and Christian Botha, private detectives appointed by the family of Fred van der Vyver, have now also laid charges of intimidation and obstruction of justice against two police officers. They claim that these officers know who killed Inge Lotz and all the details, yet did nothing about it.

Recently they said a witness to the murder has made a second statement to them in the presence of his lawyer. This witness is currently in prison on drug and murder charges.

Els told news sources that according to this witness, three people entered her apartment and killed her. One of these was an acquaintance of hers.

“According to the witness … there were six people in total, but three entered the flat,” he said.

“We have reason to believe their motive was to get money for drugs. All six are known to us and most of them are in jail at the moment waiting to appear on similar charges of murder, robbery and drug dealing.”

Els further said that the reason nothing was stolen from the flat was that ’something had gone wrong’ and the killers fled without taking anything.

The witness had been vistied in prison by the two police officers shortly after Fred was charged and told the witness that he must ‘change his story’ or face the consequences. This was after he had made a statement to them in 2005 already implicating himself in the murder.

Although no names are mentioned, I am fairly certain that this witness is none other than Werner Carolus who I reported on in June in the article: Inge Lotz Murder: The Werner Carolus Story.

If these allegations are true and this sequence of events did happen, it calls into question the motivation of the police in charging Fred. Did they do it to ’save face’? Did they dislike Fred for whatever reason? Were they too lazy to pursue other theories?

I hope that a lot more will come out at the subsequent trials (assuming there will be any!).

The Inge Lotz murder case has just gotten a whole lot stranger with Lotz private investigator laying charges of defeating the ends of justice and of perjury against key investigators who probed the murder.

Private investigator Niel van Heerden was appointed by Lotz’s family to investigate her murder soon after she was found dead in her Stellenbosch flat on March 16, 2005. He was later removed from the investigation at the insistence of the police investigators.

He accused them of withholding pertinent information from the court. He further accused a third person of perjury as he alleges that that person blatantly lied in court.

The three identities have not been released for legal reasons.

Director Novela Potelwa, spokesperson for provincial police commissioner Mzwandile Petros has confirmed the charges saying: “We are compelled to investigate all charges and will do so.”

Van Heerden said that the actions of the three could have led to life imprisonment of an innocent person.

In his statement he said that evidence he had collected had never been taken into account.
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Fred has been found not guilty … at a cost. Reports are that his family spent R9 - 10 million to prove it to the court.

They brought in four expert witnesses from around the world, had a team of attorneys and lawyers, private investigators and miscellaneous other expenses. It is no wonder that the cost was so high. After all, what loving parent would not pay everything they had to ensure their child had the best defence possible?

Fred is lucky. He comes from a section of the population that has access to this kind of money. I can’t but help thinking of the millions of other South Africans who do not have access to the same defence as Fred did. Do they get a fair shot at proving their innocence?

Without a good defence, the police have carte blanche in manufacturing evidence, presenting flimsy evidence before the court and/or not bothering with a good investigation. When this repetitively happens, they are exposed as incompetent when someone with money stands up to them - as in this case.
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