The alleged ”sugar-cane” serial killer on Tuesday accused the police of forcing him to draw up a list of 13 people the state is accusing him of having killed.
Thozamile Taki (36) told the Scottburgh High Court police had severely assaulted him before he compiled the list.
He said the police had given him a list of names and forced him to rewrite them on another piece of paper so they could be presented in court as having been compiled by him.
”When I asked why… write the names, police officers assaulted me. They even beat me with their guns. They also covered my face with a tube and I could not breathe,” he claimed.
Taki, who kept fidgeting in the dock, said he had agreed to write the names after the police threatened to kill him.
He was speaking for the first time since the trial began on July 30 in the high court.
The public gallery was packed with people who had been following the case in the media.
Taki is accused of killing 13 women and dumping their bodies in sugar-cane plantations in Umzinto, KwaZulu-Natal, and tea plantations in Port St Johns.
Arrested in September 2007, he is also facing 13 counts of robbery with aggravating circumstances. His girlfriend, Hlengiwe Nene, was charged as an accessory to the 13 robberies.
He also disputed police evidence that he had demanded a special diet, including KFC, after he had agreed to cooperate with the police investigation.
”It is not true at all. I do not even eat fatty food because it makes me ill.”
Sixty-eight of the state’s 103 witnesses had testified since the start of the trial. — Sapa