MAGISTRATE Bryan Munilall will continue to hear evidence in the bail application hearing of Marius Nagel (23) today.
Nagel has been charged with the murder and rape of Ella Sophia Potgieter.
Last Friday, Nagel took to the witness box. State prosecutor Rubeun Judnarain said Nagel was facing a schedule six offence.
Nagel told the court he had been released from prison in March this year, after serving a sentence of four years and six months for three counts of housebreaking and for the theft of a motor vehicle.
Nagel had reconnected with his father after 14 years, and had moved with his family to the coast. “I was naughty, and my father and family left me as they were scared of me,” he said, when questioned about his past.
He told the court that he had assisted police with the ‘pointing out’. “Let’s just say they (the police) were looking in the wrong places,” he said.
Nagel said he hadn’t known Potgieter, and he had only spoken to her once when he was fishing on the beach, but that, for about a week and a half, he had observed her walking along the beach picking up shells.
Nagel, represented by Legal Aid attorney Masibonge Mathomane, told the court that police assaulted and beat him’the whole day’ prior to him pointing out where the body was, and that there were no attempts made to get him a lawyer.
He told the court that he feared that he would be assaulted further if he did not point out the body.
However, he also told the court that it was while he was lying on his bed in jail that the thought crossed his mind that he should help the police.
W/O Du Plessis said that Nagel had no visible injuries when he had interviewed him, and confirmed that he had explained his rights when he arrested him on the attempted murder charge.
He said that he had asked Nagel if he wanted legal representation when he indicated that he had wanted to ‘say something to him’ and that ‘he had done something bad’.
Nagel told him that he wanted his father present.
In his reasons for opposing bail, W/O Du Plessis said that the crimes were of a serious nature and the injuries to Potgieter severe. Furthermore, Nagel had no permanent residential address and he knew some of the witnesses.
W/O Du Plessis said that during an interview with Nagel’s father, the man had had a nervous breakdown, and he had told him that he wouldn’t be able to take his son back as he had already ‘given him a chance’.
The state indicated that the indictment for the High Court would be ready this Tuesday, and DNA results were awaited.
