Cape Town - Convicted child rapist, murderer and kidnapper Moyhdian Pangkaeker has been found guilty beyond reasonable doubt and now faces a number of life terms as sentencing proceedings are due.
Western Cape High Court Acting Judge Alan Maher on Wednesday paced his way through his three-day marathon judgment against Pangkaeker who was found guilty on 21 of the 27 charges he faced, including that of the kidnapping, rape and murder of Tazne van Wyk.
Eight-year-old Tazne had been lured by the preying Pangkaeker from her parents’ home in Connaught Estate.
He disappeared with the unsuspecting girl on February 7, 2020.
Her lifeless and desecrated corpse, her left hand – on which she had an operation scar – sawn off, was found in a stormwater pipe near Worcester on the N1 after Pangaerker had led police to the site.
Throughout the trial, Pangkaeker maintained his innocence, pleaded not guilty and elaborately told the court of how he and Tazne had been kidnapped by “three men and a woman” and bundled into a taxi before Tazne’s hand was cut off for muti.
Acting Judge Maher said Pangkaeker’s versions of events was “implausible” and the “only person who could have killed Tazne is the accused”.
State prosecutor Lenro Badenhorst poked several holes in Pangaerker’s testimony, calling his fabrication of evidence “fantasy”, submitting that the evidence of the accused was “false” and he “couldn’t consistently remember day to day what he had said”.
Days after Tazne had gone missing and while several search parties were rallied, Pangkaeker had evaded arrest having denied that Tazne was with him when his twin sister Nazli Pangkaeker contacted him to ascertain his whereabouts.
Cellphone evidence submitted during the trial had shown how Pangkaeker travelled to the Free State before his arrest in Cradock.
In a plan hatched by a former lover of Pangaerker’s and police, luring him with the promise of R8 000, he was arrested on February17, 2020, at Cradock in the Eastern Cape.
DNA evidence found under Tazne’s left-hand’s fingernails, as well as evidence of a struggle, formed part of the mountain of evidence against the repeat offender.
The two-year trial also heard how Pangaerker had entered into an incestuous relationship with his biological daughter and impregnated her from which a baby boy was born.
Cape Times