The application brought by Christopher Panayiotou's legal team to have the State hand over the case docket has been postponed to next week Friday due to logistical issues.
Panayiotou stands accused of orchestrating the murder of his wife, 29-year-old schoolteacher Jayde, in April this year.
It is alleged that he paid Luthando Siyoli, 31, a bouncer at his nightclub in Algoa Park, to hire a hitman, identified as Sizwezakhe Vumazonke, 30, to murder his wife.
Late last month Sinethemba Nenembe, 28, was also linked to the case and will join Panayiotou and Vumazonke in the dock. Siyoli has since turned State witness.
In a brief appearance before Magistrate Abigail Beeton, Advocate Marius Stander requested a postponement as Panayiotou's legal team, consisting of Alwyn Griebenow and Advocate Terry Price SC, had experienced logistical issues in meeting with their client after the State had filed its opposing papers to their application on Wednesday.
Stander also pointed out that there was an additional application that would need to be heard, namely whether the application to have the case docket handed over, could be heard in the magistrate’s court, or if it had to be referred to the High Court.
Stander requested the case be postponed to next week Friday, November 20.
Price confirmed that they were seeking an extension and that the matter of the court’s jurisdiction would need to be heard first and if it was found that the court did not have jurisdiction then they would have to lodge an application in the High Court.
Beeton confirmed the postponement.
Panayiotou’s first bail application was denied by Beeton in the Port Elizabeth Magistrate’s Court on the June 5, and a subsequent appeal to High Court in Grahamstown was also turned down in July. He has been in the St Albans Correctional Facility for 185 days.
Source: News24
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