Rohde's no-show at murder trial

Murder accused Jason Rohde’s psychiatrist will be hauled before court on Tuesday to explain why the businessman broke his bail conditions.

In a day filled with drama‚ Rohde failed to appear in court on Monday. The trial was supposed to sit for the first time since November.

His counsel Pete Mihalik told the court that Rohde had been admitted to a hospital and asked for a seven-day postponement.

He handed in three medical reports which he asked the court to keep confidential. But judge Gayaat Salie-Hlophe declined to grant the postponement‚ saying that there was no medical certificate and evidence proving that Rohde was unfit to attend court.

Salie-Hlophe stood the matter down for about two hours and ordered that Rohde attend court or face arrest.

She said that he had broken his bail conditions by not appearing in court

Sergeant Steven Adams descended on the hospital to “facilitate” Rohde’s appearance but the businessman’s psychiatrist demanded a court order before he was willing to release his patient.

“I went to the clinic and I met with the doctor who is seeing the accused. He said he needs a court order to release him‚” Adams told the court. “The accused also said he wants a court order.”

The prosecution and Rohde’s counsel butted heads over the issue. Prosecutor Louis van Niekerk said the state could not accept the documents as evidence until Rohde’s doctor testified about them.

Van Niekerk described the debacle over Rohde’s health as a costly delay as engineer Colonel Daniel Poolman had flown in from Pretoria to testify on Monday. He said Rohde’s brother-in-law‚ Mark Holmes‚ had already booked his plane ticket from Australia in order to testify in the trial.

But Mihalik said the state had to afford Rohde the same treatment it offered to one of its witnesses‚ state pathologist Dr Akmal Coetzee-Khan. The trial had to be postponed for a month last year when Coetzee-Khan fell sick.

Salie-Hlophe ordered the psychiatrist to appear in court on Tuesday to explain Rohde’s condition.

Rohde is accused of murdering his wife‚ Susan Rohde‚ at the Spier Wine Estate‚ near Stellenbosch and making it look like a suicide. They have three daughters.