CARMEN Nan Lee, the mother of slain Siam Lee, broke down in court as the man accused of kidnapping and murdering her 20-year-old daughter, once again took to the witness box at the Durban Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday, 9 May.
The 29-year-old man, who cannot be named as he faces rape charges claimed authorities had divulged information regarding Lee’s murder and her body during his arrest.
“They told me I had stabbed her in the neck,” he told the court.
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“They gave me a state of the body of the deceased; essentially leading evidence. They had a narrative of how this all happened,” he added.
His outburst came as prosecutor, Surekha Marimuthu, cross-examined him regarding his previous claims that he had been tortured and assaulted by both police and private investigator, Brad Nathanson and his team – who arrested him at his home, nearly two weeks after Lee was killed.
He claimed that he had been repeatedly beaten, kicked and suffocated with a plastic bag – in an effort to coerce him into confessing to Lee’s murder.
Marimuthu said the state intended to show that the accused “exaggerated his claims of the arrest” and the assault allegations are a “complete fabrication”.
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However, the Assagay businessman stuck to his original statement.
“I was suffocated to a point where I thought I was going to die,” he said.
The accused claimed he suffered several injuries – including bruised and bleeding wrists, a bleeding nose, a bruised face and ‘painful ribs’.
Lee disappeared on January 4 on Margaret Maytom in Durban North, and her burned body was discovered in a sugarcane field in New Hanover two days later.
The hearing is set to continue tomorrow.
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