By Vusi Adonis.
A suspect in the Hillary Gardee murder case, Sipho Mkhatshwa, applied for bail, which was postponed on Friday by the Nelspruit Magistrate court to next Thursday.
Mkhatshwa said in his application that he has a four-day old baby and wanted to be a present father and needed to have the child registered at Home Affairs.
His attorney has since withdrawn from the case stating that there was a conflict of interest, which was not revealed.
Mkhatshwa is one of three suspects in the killing of former EFF Secretary General Godrich Gardee’s daughter, Hillary Gardee.
He has applied for bail after having abandoned his initial bail application in May.
The EFF has announced that they will again accompany the Gardee family to court as they have done from the beginning of the case.
Both the state and the EFF have called for Mkhatshwa’s bail application to be denied, referencing the fact he has been charged with serious schedule 6 offences.
In the court proceedings yesterday, Mkhatshwa took to the stand and detailed his movements on the day Gardee went missing.
He further went on to inform the court of his movements from the time Gardee was reportedly abducted on April 29 to the time her body was discovered on a plantation some 45 kilometres outside Mbombela.
He stated that he was primarily occupied with the preparations for his imminent lobola celebrations.
Mkhatshwa alleges he spent his time fitting outfits, purchasing refreshments for the wedding and cleaning his yard with his gardener in preparation for his upcoming lobola and wedding celebrations.
He further went on to say that he was leading a church service on the day the state alleges Gardee was killed.
“On the day the state alleges I was involved in the murder, I was in church and then went to a Portuguese festival until 7pm,” he said.
Mkhatshwa made reference to the fact that he is an elder of the Roman Catholic Church in the Malelane district.
He alleged that he was assaulted and tortured while in police custody and has subsequently opened a case with the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID).
He said: “I am innocent of all charges. Instead, the police tortured me into confessing to the crimes and implicating my co-accused”.