Murder accused feigning Jesus-like powers denied bail
Lebogang Mosikare | Wednesday August 15, 2018 14:23
But lo and behold, a Tonota man accused of killing his girlfriend surprised court on Wednesday when he claimed that he was praying for her to resurrect after he killed her.
The revelations shocked people when Gobitsa Kesupile, 35, who is accused of killing Malebogo Rankhudu in Tonota on either August 12 and 13, 2018 made his initial appearance in court.
The prosecutor in the matter, inspector Kenneth Edward, had earlier made an application for the accused to be remanded in custody because investigations had just commenced.
Kenneth called the investigations officer in the matter, detective inspector Richard Malibamba, to advance reasons why Kesupile should be remanded in custody.
Malibamba told the court that Kesupile was the last person who was seen with the deceased before she died.
“During my investigations, it came to my attention that the accused and deceased were lovers. The relatives of the deceased say that the accused killed their daughter and they are very angry with him. They may harm him if he is granted bail now. I need 14 days to complete my investigations,” Malibamba pleaded.
Kesupile’s alleged Jesus-like powers came to the fore when he cross-examined Malibamba in his unsuccessful bid to be granted bail.
At one point during cross-examination, Kesupile said he does not understand why Malibamba was saying that the relatives of the deceased would harm him if he were granted bail because the police arrested him when he was in the company of one of the deceased’s relatives but that relative never harmed him.
Kesupile added: “God is always protecting me and I don’t understand what you are saying”.
In response, Malibamba said the police are entitled by law to protect human life reiterating that he feared that the deceased’s relatives might harm Kesupile.
When questioned further by Kesupile, Malibamba then revealed what he had not told the court before.
He said: “When the police were about to arrest the accused, they found him applying anointing water on the body of the deceased. When we asked him why he was doing so, he said that Jesus gave him the powers to awaken dead people”.
However, Kesupile denied ever having told the police that he had powers to resurrect dead people.
Kesupile said he instead told the police that he was just praying to God to resurrect the deceased because he knows that only God has the powers to resurrect dead people.
After Kesupile finished cross-examining Malibamba, Edward prayed with the court to remand Kesupile in custody because he had already interfered with police investigations by applying anointing water on the body of the deceased.
Kenneth said: “The accused has already interfered with our investigations and we fear that he may further interfere with them as he has already done”.
The accused was remanded in custody and would appear in court on August 28.