Judge issues arrest warrant for murder accused Jason Rohde

A warrant of arrest was issued on Tuesday for murder accused businessman Jason Rohde to attend an inquiry into his breach of bail conditions.

Rohde failed to appear for his trial in the High Court in Cape Town on Monday‚ when it was supposed to resume for the first time since November.

His four advocates‚ led by Pete Mihalik‚ asked for a seven-day postponement to allow the businessman to recuperate from an undisclosed illness.

But Judge Gayaat Salie-Hlophe refused to grant the postponement‚ saying the information presented to her was insufficient. Salie-Hlophe said the three medical reports did not include a medical certificate explaining why Rohde was not fit to attend his trial.

Salie-Hlophe adjourned proceedings for about two hours on Monday and asked that the investigating officer‚ Sergeant Steven Adams‚ “facilitate” Rohde's appearance. But his psychiatrist at an unnamed Cape Town hospital refused to release him without a court order.

The court ordered that an inquiry into Rohde’s breach of his bail conditions be held on Tuesday and that the psychiatrist‚ Kevin Stoloff‚ testify about his condition. But on Tuesday Mihalik objected to the inquiry being held in Rohde’s absence.

Prosecutor Louis van Niekerk argued that Rohde is legally represented and the proceedings are recorded.

Salie-Hlophe issued a warrant compelling Rohde to attend the inquiry on Wednesday.

Rohde is charged with murdering his wife‚ Susan‚ and obstructing the administration of justice by making her death look like a suicide. They have three daughters.

The former Lew Geffen/Sotheby’s International Realty chief executive was sharing a room with his wife at Spier wine estate‚ near Stellenbosch‚ in July 2016 when she was found dead with the cord of a hair iron around her neck behind the locked door.

The indictment against Rohde accuses him of placing the cord around Susan’s neck “in a double strand around the clothing/towel hook at the back of the bathroom door”. He then supplied false information to police‚ it says.

“The postmortem examination conducted on the body of the deceased shows the cause of death as consistent with asphyxia following manual strangulation and external airway obstruction‚” says the indictment.

“The features of the ligature imprint abrasion mark are consistent with postmortem application to the neck.”