‘Conspiracy to kidnap’ case back in court

Margate businessman Rowan Adamson (31) returned to court last week where he is facing two charges of conspiracy to kidnap.

Mr Adamson was arrested last year and released on R5 000 bail.

One of the charges relates to the kidnapping of Yzelle Greyling (51).

ALSO READ : UPDATE: Yzelle Greyling kidnapping case: Fourth suspect released on bail

Ms Greyling spent some 10 hours bound and gagged in the boot of a car after being abducted at gunpoint in Umzumbe.

She was later released unharmed.

Ms Greyling’s kidnappers, Andre Breedt (34), Alistair Grobbelaar (47) and Lindani Raymond Mnguni (28) pleaded guilty in May 2019.

They were sentenced to an effective six years in jail.

For the two counts of kidnapping Ms Greyling’s staff, the trio were handed four years’ imprisonment, of which three were suspended for five years.

They were sentenced to a further five years for kidnapping Ms Greyling. The sentences were to run concurrently.

After serving some 14 months behind bars the kidnappers were released earlier this year.

Mr Adamson’s trial began in the Izingolweni Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday and Thursday last week.

He is represented by attorney, Kingsley du Plessis.

State prosecutor Bryon Peek called his first witness, Andre Breedt who spent two gruelling days in the witness box.

Under cross-examination by Mr Adamson’s attorney the court heard how after another failed kidnapping attempt (not that of Ms Greyling) Breedt and Grobbelaar met Mr Adamson in Margate.

At the meeting it was allegedly agreed that they have one last attempt, or Mr Adamson wanted his supplies – a cellphone, pillowcase, super glue and duct tape – returned to him.

The court later heard how at the scene of the kidnapping the three men were in possession of a gas gun which belonged to Grobbelaar’s son, while Breedt had a knife to cut the duct tape and Mnguni had a spanner for self-defence in case Ms Greyling’s two workers wanted to attack him.

Magistrate Levien Yengopal ended Thursday’s proceedings by asking Breedt whether he knew the other five people (excluding Ms Greyling) that they had attempted to kidnap, including an ‘unknown man’ who drove a ‘fast car’.

Magistrate Yengopal said the impression the court got from Breedt’s evidence in chief was that there was a plan to kidnap Ms Greyling which ‘Breedt bounced off the accused and the accused bounced off Breedt’.

“When the actual kidnapping took place, the accused didn’t know anything about it. It took place in a completely different location, the role-players were completely different and the modus-operandi was completely different.”

Magistrate Yengopal asked Breedt if he had told Mr Adamson that the kidnapping had happened.

Breedt replied that he had let Mr Adamson know, as that was the phone call he made to him on Friday morning.

“I’m sure it came as a surprise as there were a lot of failed attempts before that,” said Breedt.

“He was aware we were going to do it that morning… it was just a different location.”

Breedt told the court that he had met Mr Adamson outside Port Shepstone Hospital, and for the first time a (ransom kidnapping) figure of R4-million was discussed, and that they would split the money.

When Magistrate Yengopal questioned the ‘issue about drugs’, Breedt replied that he occasionally took drugs, over weekends and in the towing industry for the long hours they worked.

Magistrate Yengopal asked Breedt if he was sure he wasn’t on drugs at the time as the picture that court was getting was that the random kidnapping attempts were almost like a ‘frenzy- no planning’.

Breedt agreed, saying there was ‘no proper planning – that’s why it didn’t work out’, and said he wasn’t on drugs as ‘there was no money for that’.

The trial was postponed to November.

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