UPDATE 2.30pm:
At 2pm court proceeding’s resumed for accused defence and state prosecutor to argue the final verdict and sentencing of the accused. Both the accused were not to make another appearance before the bench for the rest of the day. Final judgement will be set for November.
UPDATE 11.45pm:
Naicker still adamantly argues her innocence before the judge. She explained that though she was depressed in 2013 as a result of personal issues, she was working through it. When asked about her mother’s (Rajwanthie Haripersadh) part in the case, she said that she was not concerned about her mother’s role at all, but with the sole fact that she herself has been implicated when she was innocent. Naicker maintains that she had a good relationship with the child and that if he had upset her about anything, she’d complain straight to his mother (Ishara) and would not discipline him herself.
INITIAL REPORT:
The murder trial of 9-year-old Phoenix school boy, Shahiel Sewpujun is underway at the Durban High Court, before Judge Dhana Pillay’s bench. Murder accused, Kavitha Naicker, took the stand, being question by defence advocate Simphiwe Ndela, Naicker was adamant about her innocence, and claimed she did not kill the child but was instead framed by the child’s stepfather. “I had a good relationship with the child,” she told Ndela. “If I commited the crime, I would not have been so stupid to use tape that I owned and I would not have left any fingerprints,” she said. “I have no knowledge of who has done it, but I didn’t do it.”
“I kept all my belongings in a carton and anyone could have taken my belongings and used them on the deceased.”
When Ndela asked her about the metal object belonging to the family’s kitchen that was used to kill the child, Naicker replied that she had only known the object was used to grind ginger and garlic at their home in Clayhaven. Naicker was insistant on her innocence and fought back intelligently with aggression when Ndela questioned her. “I strongly feel that I was framed,” she said, adding that she thinks the child’s step father said some “very mean things” to her in their last argument.
Naicker, together with her mother Rajwanthie Haripersadh, were accused of murdering her cousin’s 9-year-old son, Shahiel Sewpujun, in February last year. The child was reported missing by his mother, Ishara, on a Friday, and his body was found the following Sunday, mangled and shoved into a manhole in Clayhaven not far from the accused’s home. The child was believed to have been bludgeoned to death with a metal object and his school bag had been disposed of.