Cape Town - Three Belhar residents accused of kidnapping a lawyer appeared in the Bellville Magistrate’s Court on Monday.
Almore Schreuder, 40, Charmaine Shreuder, 24, and Garth Weber, 33, were arrested on Saturday after Gerhard Cornelius de Jongh was reported missing by his wife.
The three accused are charged with kidnapping and three counts of robbery with aggravating circumstances.
The accused appeared dishevelled and agitated before magistrate Nasira Khan. Weber was legally represented by Sameer Sayed while the Schreuders opted for Legal Aid.
Attempting to bring a bail application for his client as a matter of urgency, Sayed said, “When I woke up I was a bit disillusioned, we heard a story that a colleague got kidnapped. My colleagues surrounded me and said you ‘would be mad to do this case, decline it’.
“Then I remembered the presumption of innocence in our Constitution.
“This matter is clearly wired, a wife caught her husband having a lovely party. This is what this matter is about, nobody got kidnapped,” Sayed said.
He pointed out to the magistrate that on the charge sheet, the prosecutor happened to scratch out “firearm” and replace it with a “knife”.
“The complainant (De Jongh) in this matter is a frequent client of one of the accused. These are trumped-up charges … nobody was tied up, nobody was kidnapped, nobody was bound up and the complainant in this matter is very well acquainted with all three of these accused,” he said.
Police spokesperson, Joseph Swartbooi, said: “On February 17, the wife of a local lawyer in Bellville, reported her husband missing as he never returned home after work.
“Bellville detectives were operationalised as a result of the strange circumstances surrounding this incident.
“Following the leads in the file found on the desk in the office, their sights were set on an address in Klawer.
“Klawer police spotted the vehicle at an address in their policing precinct and entered the house where they rescued the missing person who was traumatised.
“They arrested and detained a man and two women on a charge of kidnapping,” Swartbooi said.
It is alleged at this stage, by the State, that the accused are guilty of “threatening De Jongh with a knife” and forcing him to withdraw R1 000 from his wife’s bank account.
As the matter was postponed to February 24, a man who identified himself as Almore’s husband walked out of the court.