The Cape High Court resumed proceedings in the kidnapping and human trafficking case of missing seven-year-old Joshlin Smith on Tuesday, with the focus now shifting to a trial within a trial concerning the admissibility of key confession statements.
The court is sitting in Saldanha Bay on the Cape West Coast, where three accused — Kelly Smith, her boyfriend Jacquen “Boeta” Appollis, and Steveno van Rhyn — are standing trial over the disappearance of Joshlin, who went missing from the Middlepos informal settlement in February last year.
At the centre of this phase of the trial is whether confession statements made by two of the accused were obtained lawfully. The defence argues that the statements were extracted through police torture and coercion.
Appollis testified this week that police assaulted him with batons before he provided his statement in March 2023, maintaining that the confession was made under duress.
Meanwhile, state witness Lourentia Lombaard gave explosive testimony, claiming that the day before Joshlin vanished, her mother, Kelly Smith, confided in her that she had sold the child to a sangoma for R20,000.
The outcome of this trial within a trial will determine whether the contested statements can be admitted as evidence in the main trial. Proceedings are expected to continue this week.