Pretoria High Court Judge Essop Patel, who was presiding over the criminal trial of alleged child molester Cezanne Visser, alias ”Advocate Barbie”, has died.
Patel died of cancer after a long sickness, the South African Broadcasting Corporation reported on Tuesday. He was to be buried according to Muslim rites on Tuesday morning at Johannesburg’s Newclare cemetery.
His office said all his cases had been finalised except for the Visser trial. A new judge has still not been appointed
Judge Eben Jordaan on Monday postponed Visser’s trial to October 2 by agreement between the state and the defence.
The trial was delayed for a considerable period when Patel fell ill and was unable to resume his duties.
Visser and her former lover, Dirk Prinsloo, pleaded not guilty to all of the charges against them about two years ago. Prinsloo is still on the run from police after failing to return from a business trip to Russia.
The prosecution has already closed its case against Visser. But her legal team last year applied for the reopening of the defence case, submitting that she suffered from chronic post-traumatic stress and depression as a result of the domestic abuse and coercive control she had suffered at the hands of Prinsloo.
Visser was referred to a mental hospital for 30 days for psychiatric observation after her advocate argued that her judgement had been impaired to such an extent that, although she knew the difference between right and wrong, she had been unable to act accordingly.
Visser faces a range of sex-related charges, including indecently assaulting women and children, soliciting a minor to commit indecent acts, the possession and manufacture of child pornography and defrauding a children’s home.
The state alleges Visser had removed children from a children’s home under false pretences and taken them to Prinsloo’s home, where they were allegedly forced to walk around naked, exposed to pornography and indecently assaulted.
Some of the victims claimed they were drugged before being indecently assaulted and one child witness told the court Prinsloo and Visser had sex in front of her. Visser is also alleged to have stimulated herself with a vibrator in front of a child.
One of the alleged adult female victims last year testified that Visser had intimately fondled her during a ”sex game” involving Prinsloo.
Visser’s bail was extended. — Sapa