The Wynberg Regional Court in Cape Town is to deliver judgement on Monday in the second bail application launched by Najwa Petersen, who goes on trial in the Cape High Court next year for the alleged murder of her famous husband, Taliep.
After her senior counsel, Herbert Raubenheimer, on Thursday urged the court to ”be bold and release her on bail”, prosecutor Shireen Riley countered that there were no exceptional and compelling circumstances to justify her release on bail.
She alleged that Petersen had misled the court in her first application, and for this reason had much explaining to do.
Riley said Petersen had sat passively in the dock in her first application, while her previous legal team had placed misleading evidence before the court based on what she had told them.
She said Petersen had even allowed the court in the previous application to base its judgement on misleading information about her precarious mental state.
In her first application, Petersen had hoped to be released on bail on the basis of her suicidal tendencies, which would have been aggravated by her incarceration, Riley said.
However, this had backfired when the court had instead refused her bail, ruling that she was safer in prison.
Riley added: ”She knows that she did not attempt suicide — yet she allowed the court to be misled by evidence that she had.”
If the court ruled the interests of Petersen’s young daughter to be paramount, it had to weigh this against the equally important interests of justice and the community, she said. — Sapa