[caption id="attachment_202800" align="aligncenter" width="630"] Christopher Panayiotou and his co accused Sinethemba Nemembe and Zolani Sibeko
Picture: Eugene Coetzee[/caption]
It has been a whirlwind case with ups and downs for the state and the defence.
Ugly allegations of witness intimidation and assaults were thrown back and forth, and witnesses recanted on their statements.
But the prosecution was given the upper hand shortly before they closed their case in June when a secret video recording in which PE businessman Christopher Panayiotou seemingly discussed his wife, Jayde’s murder, was allowed to be played in court.
The video, of course, went viral on social media, where the court of public opinion went rampant.
However, the baton has now been passed on to the legal team for Panayiotou, alleged hitman Sinethemba Nemembe and co-conspirator Zolani Sibeko, who will be granted an opportunity to present their case over the next two weeks.
While they have remained mum on exactly who will be called as witnesses, at the end of the last court sitting, Judge Dayalin Chetty gave the defence the go-ahead to consult with the likes of Panayiotou’s mistress, Chanelle Coutts, and IT technician Donovan Vosloo, who worked on the phones of Panayiotou and Coutts shortly after Jayde’s murder.
The defence of Nemembe and Sibeko is expected to be more of a technical one, with the majority of the state’s evidence based on circumstantial evidence and cellphone plotting.
They will likely call their own cellphone expert to the stand.
But for now, the question on everyone’s lips – whether or not Panayiotou will testify in his defence – remains a mystery.
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