Murder accused to testify on Thursday
The State closed its case in the murder trial of Johannes Christiaan de Jager in the Western Cape High Court on Wednesday.
De Jager -- accused of the rape and murder of a prostitute as well as a teenage girl on holiday from Mpumalanga -- was to have testified in his own defence on Wednesday,
However, his counsel, Sakkie Maartens, needed the day to consult his client, and De Jager is now expected to take the witness stand on Thursday.
He faces seven charges -- two of murder, two of rape, one of robbery with aggravating circumstances, one of dismembering a corpse and one of setting a corpse alight.
He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
On the robbery charge, he is alleged to have robbed the prostitute of her cellphone, but he claims to have merely taken it as an afterthought, after the murder, and not to have murdered his victim in order to take her cellphone.
On the robbery count he pleaded not guilty, but guilty to theft instead. However, his plea was rejected by the State, and the trial proceeded on the charge of robbery.
At Wednesday's proceedings, Maartens told the court that he had been to a doctor for an anti-tetanus injection, but he did not explain why.
He added: "The doctor told me to stop being a cry-baby."
- Sapa