Cape Town - Judgment in the case of accused child rapist and killer, Moyhdian Pangaerker, continued on Tuesday as acting Judge Alan Maher made his way through a lengthy judgment at the Western Cape High Court.
During the trial, the court heard testimonies from several witnesses, painting a violent and sadistic picture of Pangaerker, who faces 27 criminal charges, one of them incest, where he fathers a son with his biological daughter.
The court also heard how he had violently assaulted three minor children after getting romantically involved with their mother.
In their testimony to court, the two brothers and their sister detailed how Pangaerker would assault them with a “genuine leather belt” and a wooden plank, giving them lashings over their buttocks and body as they lay across his lap.
According to one of the brothers, Pangaerker had done this when he refused to call Pangerker “daddy” after the murder-accused ordered them to do so and because “he did not want them to play outside the yard, make noise or make friends” – resulting in the brothers running away from home and having the matter reported to police with the help of a guardian.
Pangaerker faces several life sentences for crimes including the kidnapping, rape and murder of 8-year-old Tazne van Wyk.
In their heads of argument, state prosecutor Lenro Badenhorst averred that Pangaerker had “a sadomasochistic temperament and enjoyed meting out punishment” against his victims.
A child witness had also detailed how Pangaerker had allegedly raped her on at least 10 occasions and how the incidents caused her “nightmares and sleeplessness”.
Pangaerker was arrested in Cradock on February 17, 2020 in connection with the kidnapping, rape and the murder of Tazne following days of searching for the little girl.
The State’s case detailed how Pangaerker had lured her from her Clare Street home in Connaught Estate before he disappeared with her on February 7, 2020.
Tazne’s desecrated and decomposing corpse was found in a stormwater pipe along the N1 after Pangaerker pointed out the scene to cops soon after his arrest.
Her left hand had been sawed off.
The matter continues in the high court.
Cape Times