Closing arguments to continue in Joshlin Smith kidnapping trial – SABC News
The Joshlin Smith kidnapping case is expected to resume today after the lawyer representing accused number one, Jacquen Appollis, argued that the state was basing its case on the evidence of Lourentia Lombard.
Fannie Harmse yesterday told the court that there were discrepancies and contradictions in the statement given by Lombard.
Lombard is the former accused who turned state witness.
She testified that Kelly Smith, who is Joshlin’s mother, told her that she sold Joshlin to a sangoma for R20 000.
The girl’s mother Kelly Smith, Appollis and Steveno van Rhyn are on trial in relation to the child’s disappearance from her Middelpos home in Saldanha Bay in February last year.
Harmse has also questioned what the laywer says are two contradictory versions put forward by the state in relation to the statements of Lombard and Kelly Smith.
The state has described this as the first case of its kind in South Africa, with the main source of information or the most important witness, Joshlin, still missing.