Lawyers butt heads as banker's murder trial is delayed till next week

While double-murder accused Vincenzo Pietropaolo was meant to argue an application to have charges against him withdrawn on Monday, proceedings transformed into a quarrel between the state and defence about delays in the case.

Last week, the trial was postponed at the high court in Johannesburg to allow Pietropaolo to launch a Section 174 application, which would essentially ask the court to withdraw some of the charges against him on the basis that the state had failed to prove its case.

The former Bank of Athens treasurer was arrested in November 2017, shortly after his estranged wife Manuela was murdered - shot nine times at her home in Brackenhurst, Ekurhuleni.

Pietropaolo has also been charged with the murder of his father, Pasqualino, who died months earlier in what police initially thought was a botched robbery at the elderly man’s home.

Pietropaolo’s lawyer, Louis Weinstein, told the court on Wednesday last week that he would bring an application on the charges related to Pasqualino’s killing - likely due to the limited evidence presented by the state for that aspect of the trial.

If successful, the charge would be dropped and the banker would not have to defend himself on questions relating to his father’s death.

However, Weinstein arrived early on Monday to tell judge Ratha Mokgoatlheng that he was not ready to start what would be a “lengthy and complex application” and wished to submit written heads of argument.

Prosecutor Lwazi Ngodwana objected to Weinstein’s request for a postponement, arguing that the case was not complicated enough to warrant further delays. He said the defence had already delayed the case enough, adding that Weinstein had since last week to write down his heads of argument.

Weinstein shot back, however, reminding the court that the state had asked for a two-and-a-half month postponement when some of its witnesses were unavailable. He said he was well within his rights to bring a substantive application to force the state to answer for such a long delay.

He said he had not opposed the postponement at the time, in the hope that the state would be understanding if the defence also needed time to formulate its case.

Weinstein added that the reason for his inability to construct his heads of argument was also partly due to the fact that he only received the last section of the court record last week, which he believed was a necessary component for the application.

Ngodwana argued that the last section of the record was only about 55 pages and the defence therefore did not need so much time to respond to the issues raised in it.

However, judge Mokgoatlheng granted the postponement until next week - although he indicated that this would be the final delay, at least in relation to the Section 174 proceedings.

Last week, as the state finalised its case, the court heard details of the night when Pietropaolo was arrested - and how he had essentially confessed to Manuela’s killing in a text message to his new girlfriend.

Sergeant Tshepo Tshukudu, a member of the West Rand SAPS Flying Squad, had searched Pietropaolo’s home and subsequently arrested him just hours after the shooting.

Tshukudu testified that he had noticed Pietropaolo texting on his phone. After looking at the messages, he saw that Pietropaolo had been communicating with his girlfriend, claiming that he would be going to jail for his involvement in a shooting.

While he initially believed there was coarse language used in the messages - namely that Pietropaolo had referred to his wife as “the bitch” - when Tshukudu was given his own written statement to read to the court, the message actually said: “I’m sorry, baby, I killed her. I love you. I’m going to jail.”

The state has also provided evidence of Pietropaolo’s movements on the respective dates of his wife and father’s deaths, using the banker’s vehicle tracker to prove that he was in the vicinity at the time of both killings.