No plea bargain for killer cop

A murder accused’s attempt to secure a plea deal on a lesser charge failed on Thursday, and restored a tiny bit of faith in the justice system for the mother of his victim.

Gerschwyn Clint Siweni is standing trial for two counts of murder after shooting his girlfriend Claudia Bergover, 22, and a Taxify driver in Edenpark, Johannesburg in May last year. Siweni is a former police officer.

On Thursday Bergover’s mother sat in the dock at the Johannesburg High Court, and recalled witnessing her daughter’s killer threaten her life on an earlier occasion.

“In 2017, he had said to Claudia: ‘If I ever catch you with another guy, I will kill you.’ I heard him. He said it in my presence,” said Patricia Bergover.

She told The Citizen, that she immediately told the accused to leave and to never set foot in her home again.

In March 2019, he requested to meet with Bergover to apologise for the statement he had made, she said. Less than two months later, however, her worst nightmare came true.

“It was a public holiday on 1 May and my daughter left with her 2-year-old child to go visit him at his father’s place in Edenpark. Later we got a call that my daughter has been shot.”

When they arrived at the scene, they found the Taxify car in which she was traveling 20m from Siweni’s home with the driver dead in his seat. Claudia was laying on the floor, covered in a foil blanket.

“One of the neighbours brought my granddaughter and said she took her because she heard her screaming,” Bergover recalls.

Siweni, who was still serving as a police officer at the time of the murders, pleaded guilty to shooting and killing Claudia and the Taxify driver who had come to pick her up, as he had wrongly assumed he was her lover. They were both shot in the head.

Bergover had almost lost all hope in the justice system, when earlier this week, Siweni’s lawyers had proposed a plea bargain of a 15-year sentence for both murders. She believed that this would cheapen the value ofher daughter’s life, and send the wrong message to murderers.

She said she was appalled at the idea of a plea bargain as she demanded that her daughter’s killer be sentenced to life imprisonment.

“There is so much gender-based violence happening and the President said such cases should get life [imprisonment]. My granddaughter is three-years-old now but she has already been sentenced to a life without a mother.”

The prosecutors appeared to agree, as Siweni’s proposal was rejected by the state.

Gauteng National Prosecuting Authority spokesperson Phindi Mjonondwane said, “The defence team proposed a plea bargain but the state did not accept it. The case continues on Monday.”

rorisangk@citizen.co.za

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