Jacquen “Boeta” Appollis testifies in the trial-within-a-trial at the Western Cape high court sitting in Saldanha Bay, on Friday.
The first accused in the Joslin Smith kidnapping and trafficking trial told the Western Cape high court on Friday that he was tortured by police officers who tried to force him into confessing — at one point asking if he “knew Jesus” before putting a black bag over his head.
The testimony was delivered by Jacquen “Boeta” Appollis during the ongoing trial-within-a-trial — a separate legal proceeding to determine whether confessions made by him and accused two, Steveno van Rhyn, can be admitted as evidence.
Appollis’s disputed confession was also read to the court, line by line, with him indicating which parts were truthful and which were allegedly false and coerced.
At the start of the day’s proceedings, he claimed that he was subjected to hours of violence and psychological intimidation at the hands of at least four police officers on 4 May 2024, at the Sea Border offices.
Then six-year-old Joslin went missing from her family’s shack in the Middelpos informal settlement in the Saldanha Bay area on 19 February, while in the care of Appollis. She has not been seen since.
The state alleges that her mother Kelly Smith, who is accused three and the partner of Appollis, orchestrated the sale of the child to a sangoma.
Van Rhyn and Lourentia Lombaard — who was an accused in the matter until becoming a state witness last year — were allegedly offered hush money after they overheard Smith telling Appollis about the plan the day before Joslin was allegedly sold.
Testifying in Afrikaans, which was translated by a court interpreter, Appollis told the court that, after repeatedly telling the officers he did not know where the child was, “They told me I was talking shit and that this was the day I was going to die.”
According to Appollis, two police officers in civilian clothing — one described as Xhosa and another as coloured with a beard — handcuffed him, forced him to the floor in an office in the Sea Border building, and inserted a metal pipe behind his knees. Several other officers were witnesses to this, he claimed.
He was then lifted off the ground in a contorted position, with his legs suspended and his head hanging down.
“One of them asked me if I knew Jesus,” he testified. “I said ‘yes’. Then he pulled a black bag over my head.”
Being led by his advocate, Fanie Harmse, Appollis alleged that the officers instructed him to nod or shake his head when he wanted to speak, while the bag was over his head. “As I found I couldn’t breathe, I nodded and they took it off,” he said.
The alleged interrogation escalated from there. “They asked me where Joslin was. I said I don’t know. Then they hit me with batons — on my knees, feet, hands — and slapped me hard in the face,” he said. “I became dizzy.”
Appollis estimated the alleged ordeal lasted late into the night. “They kept putting the bag over my head and kept asking me where Joslin was,” he said. Each time, he replied that he did not know.
He described how, later that night, Van Rhyn was brought into the offices and allegedly subjected to the same treatment. Appollis said he witnessed Van Rhyn being suspended in the same manner, beaten and suffocated.
While this was happening, Appollis claimed he was bound with cable ties and wrapped in a large blue police flag, with his head exposed. Officers allegedly continued to beat him with batons while Van Rhyn was interrogated.
According to his testimony, the police questioned him about a woman named Makalima, who lives in the Middelpos area.
“They asked me if I knew her,” said Appollis. “When I said yes, they told me I must go show them where she lives. I said yes, I would.”
Makalima appears to refer to Phumza Sigaqa. Sigaqa was arrested on 5 March 2024 and appeared in court twice in the early days of the investigation as the alleged sangoma Joslin was sold to.
Charges against her were withdrawn because there was no evidence implicating her in the child’s disappearance. Sigaqa has not yet been called as a witness and it is unclear if she will be.
Continuing his testimony, Appollis said the police officers handcuffed him and drove him to point out Makalima’s shack. He did this while in a police car, he said. Many police vehicles in a convoy had arrived at the woman’s home.
The officers then took Makalima, her husband and her two children to the Sea Border offices, he said.
Shortly after, while he was waiting in the car, two male detectives — one described by Appollis earlier as the Xhosa man — allegedly told Appollis that he must tell Makalima “to her face” that he and Van Rhyn had taken Joslin to her as part of the sale.
Appollis said that when he was taken to Makalima in the Sea Border building, he saw she was handcuffed and two female officers were “hitting her feet with batons”.
The officers again told him to tell Makalima that he and Van Rhyn “took Joslin to her [on 19 February]”.
“I told her that,” Appollis said. Makalima responded by asking him, “How can you do this?” he told the court.
The officers then told Appollis they were taking him to Smith and he should tell her that she had instructed him to take Joslin to Makalima on the day of her disappearance, and that Makalima would pay him R20 000 for the child. (This formed part of the disputed confession that was read in court.)
After he told Smith what police had allegedly told him to say, the officers again put him in a vehicle, said Appollis. He remained there, handcuffed, for the remainder of the night, he told the court.
It was at about 4am the following morning, 5 March 2024, while he was still in the vehicle, that Sergeant Felicia Johnson approached him, read him his rights and arrested him.
Appollis was then placed in another car and transported to hospital for a medical check-up. This was done by different police officers.
When he was returned to the Sea Border offices, he allegedly made his false confession, according to Appollis, because he “didn’t want to be assaulted again”. He was then taken for another medical check-up.
The court has previously heard medical evidence from the doctors who examined Appollis and Van Rhyn before and after their disputed confessions.
Both doctors told the court they did not observe any signs of physical abuse that were consistent with what the men had described. The accused had not told them about the alleged assaults.
In their plea explanations, both men used exactly the same words to describe the alleged torture they suffered.
According to the disputed confession read out in court, Appollis, Van Rhyn and Joslin went to Makalima’s shack on Monday 19 February. Appollis told the woman Smith had sent him. He asked her “how the money business is going to work”.
Makalima told him she had already spoken to Smith about that. Joslin was playing with Makalima’s children, he said, and he and Van Rhyn returned to the shack that he, Smith, Joslin and her brothers lived in.
None of this was true, said Appollis.
The state started its cross-examination of Appollis on Friday afternoon.