Police patrol van in Pretoria. A man accused of killing his pregnant girlfriend was denied bail at the Kimberley Magistrate’s Court. Picture: Bongani Shilubane African News Agency (ANA)
Rustenburg - A 30-year-old man accused of stabbing his pregnant girlfriend to death will stand trial at the Northern Cape High Court sitting in Kimberley.
Aldean Wilkinson was denied bail at the district court after allegedly stabbing his 28-year-old pregnant girlfriend and mother of his two children.
“During his bail application, the accused made a plea for bail, but the prosecution and the SAPS successfully opposed it. The police had reservations about the court granting the accused bail, the main reason being that the accused might interfere with witnesses, as some are known to him,” said Mojalefa Senokoatsane, the National Prosecuting Authority’s (NPA) spokesperson in the Northern Cape division.
“The prosecutor opposed bail, given the seriousness of the charges against the accused and as it was in the best interest of justice, for requesting the court not grant him bail.”
He said Wilkinson would be kept in custody until his next court appearance in the high court on August 29, when his trial on charges of murder and assault was expected to commence.
The body of his girlfriend was found with a stab wound at her home on May 15. Wilkinson was arrested on May 16 after handing himself over to the police.
In a separate incident, the Hawks in Mpumalanga said two brothers, Carlos Bernardo Guambe, 34, and Gabriel Bernardo Guambe, 32, were found guilty and sentenced at the Belfast Magistrate’s Court on Friday, for contravention of the Immigration Act.
“They were sentenced to three months’ imprisonment or R5 000 fine each. The accused, who abandoned their bail application for trafficking in persons case, are serving their sentence behind bars,” said Hawks spokesperson in Mpumalanga Captain Dineo Lucy Sekgotodi.
“They will join their co-accused, Cornelis Johannes Uys, 60, and Cornelis Johannes Albertus Uys, 23, who appeared before the Belfast Magistrate’s Court on Monday, 25 July 2022, for bail application after they were arrested for contravening the Trafficking in Persons Act, participating or conspiring to trafficking in persons. The accused were remanded in custody and the case was postponed to 27 July 2022 for further bail hearing.”
Cornelis Johannes Uys and his son were arrested on June 24 in a trafficking in persons case where 39 people, including seven women, nine children under the age of five and 23 men all over the age of 18, were rescued from a farm in Dullstroom during a multi-disciplinary operation by members of the Hawks, Flying Squad, Department of Labour and Home Affairs.
“Further information gathered at the crime scene was that the modus operandi entails that the victims were recruited from Mozambique and brought into South Africa in a taxi for job opportunities.
“The victims were transported from Mozambique to the border whereby they had to get out of the taxi and cross the border illegally through the river into South Africa, where they were taken by the taxi to Lydenburg. The son of the farm owner and one trafficker allegedly met with the taxi driver and paid him money in exchange for the victims, who were taken into the farm for labour,” said Sekgotodi.
IOL