Accused husband killer Zurenah Smit will have to face the “tsunami of prima facie evidence” against her and her co-accused after their Section 174 application failed in the Western Cape High Court this week. 

Smit applied to have the murder charge, among other charges, against her dismissed. She stands accused of killing her husband, 62-year-old Stellenbosch farmer Stefan Smit.

Her co-accused Derek Sait sought in his application to be discharged in respect of a single count of intimidation listed as count three in the indictment.  

Some of the charges the two face, and if sustained, carry a prescribed sentence of life imprisonment. They have both pleaded not guilty to all 16 criminal charges preferred against them.

In handing down judgment in respect of the Section 174 application, Judge Derek Wille said: “In my view, the accused are impermissibly attempting to utilise the discharge provisions as a mechanism or tool to gain insight into the strengths and weaknesses of the case for the prosecution to tailor their evidence from now on or to assist them with their decision on whether or not they should testify in their defence and call witnesses. This is not the purpose for which the discharge provisions were designed. A criminal trial is ‘not a game of catch-as-catch can’.”

The murder trial has included an inspection-loco, a total of 18 State witnesses, including a handwriting and ballistic expert.

During what the court has described as a tragic and unfortunate criminal trial, a Section 204 witness testified that he was hired as a hitman by Zurenah, 54, who said she would pay him when she received her inheritance.

The court heard that Zurenah had allegedly provided the hitman with a firearm, which was previously stolen from the deceased’s safe. After drugging him with sleeping tablets, Smit was shot and killed in what was supposed to be portrayed as a farm robbery/murder. 

The robbers had made off with two cellphones and a handbag after shooting Smit multiple times.

Zurenah and a guest were unscathed during the apparent attack.

She became a person of interest in the murder after she was axed out of Smit’s will, which was altered in 2018 when R200,000 was stolen from his safe.

Judge Wille said the accused are effectively asking this court to find them not guilty at this stage of the proceedings with respect to specific charges in the indictment, which he said is “manifestly premature”.  

The two seek a separation from the main charges in the indictment, specifically those for which they believe there is no evidence that they committed the acts as described in the indictment.  

These counts deal with three counts of robbery with aggravating circumstances, intimidation, conspiracy to commit murder, murder, fraud, three counts of the unlawful possession of an unlicensed firearm, and one count of the illegal possession of ammunition.

“What they said, in essence, was that they had nothing to do with the murder of the deceased and that they also did not enter into any conspiracy to murder the deceased.  Accused 1 (Zurenah) also denied that she had anything to do with the forgery of any documents or wills relating to the estate of the deceased,” said Judge Wille.

Smit, who was the owner of Stellenbosch wine farm, Louisenhof, was murdered in June 2019 when armed suspects entered their residence through an unlocked door on a Sunday evening.

In 2022, Zurenah was disinherited after the Western Cape High Court found Smit’s last will and testament had been forged.

In her order at the time, Judge Babalwa Mantame declared Zurenah “unworthy” of taking any benefit from Smit’s estate, including maintenance and benefits from a R3.5 million policy.

chevon.booysen@inl.co.za

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