A magistrate on Wednesday refused bail to two of the nine men arrested after a night of murder, rape and robbery in Gordon’s Bay last month.
The two are Simon Lolo (20) and Thomas Baraza (22).
Strand magistrate Du Toit Malherbe said they had failed to show the ”extraordinary circumstances” that merited him granting bail on the charges.
The other seven accused said through their lawyer that they would apply for bail only after charges in other cases against them had been finalised.
Earlier, the court heard that Lolo and Baraza had previous convictions. They made the admissions when they gave evidence in their bail applications in a heavily guarded courtroom.
Defence attorney Natalie October told the court that the other seven accused — six men and a 16-year-old — would not apply for bail at this stage. She said they were already appearing in other cases and wanted to complete those first.
Baraza, who is asking to be let out on bail of R200, told the court he was arrested last year on robbery charges along with two of his co-accused in the current case. Those charges were dropped because no one could identify him, he said.
He said that before that, in 2000, he was convicted in the Goodwood Magistrate’s Court of housebreaking and theft, and sentenced to ”attend classes”. The following year, a Somerset West magistrate gave him five years’ jail for housebreaking, which he served in full.
Prosecutor Marlene van Heerden said she had records of yet another housebreaking and theft conviction in Somerset West, in July 2000. This crime was committed in the same town and on the same day as one of which his co-accused Lolo was convicted.
She said that in the 2001 case, Baraza was also found guilty of possessing an unlicensed firearm and ammunition.
Lolo, seeking R500 bail, told the court he was jailed in 1991 for housebreaking. He could not remember two other housebreaking convictions Van Heerden said she had on record.
The nine accused allegedly broke into two houses in Milnerton Street in Gordon’s Bay on May 21, murdering 78-year-old Joy van Aarde and raping a 25-year-old neighbour, who was pregnant. The gang also allegedly stole a Nissan bakkie, jewellery, clothes, cellphones and cash. — Sapa