"I am not a violent man" - murder accused
2005-12-01
Malané Bosman
THE man charged with the murder of a Paarl East church custodian fears for his life in prison.
“I fear for my life before I have the chance to shed some light on what happened to Charlie,” Ewans Marani said in the Paarl magistrate’s court on Monday.
Marani (28) and his co-accused, Selwyn Adonis (22) of Desmore Street, Paarl East, appeared before a packed court.
He walked confidently into the accused bench, carrying a techno-thriller by Michael Crichton as if cradling a Bible.
With the word “Banned” on his navyblue track-suit pants, Marani stood tall.
Adonis appeared uneasy, wringing his white cap and when he once looked at the visitors, signalled to his family that he wanted cigarettes.
Both men were represented by legal aid lawyers, who led the questioning in the bail application.
The men are accused of the murder of Charles Jacobs (54) of Kolbe Street, Paarl East, in the Church of the Latter Day Saints on Halloween.
“Being in custody is pretty traumatic for me,” Marani said.
“I have a fear of confined places.”
He explained to the court how he came to South Africa as a missionary in 2001.
When asked why he had once left for eight months, Marani said: “I chose to leave. I had personal problems.”
When Chris Abrahams, the state prosecutor, put it to Marani that the problems arose because of the separation from his wife, Marani chose not to reply.
Shortly after the marriage the couple moved from his in-laws in Rustigaan Village to Smartietown.
“To get some space and because it was convenient at the time,” Marani said.
“And we moved back because we could not keep up with the environment and it was convenient to move back.”
Pressed for answers Marani agreed that he left home in 2004 due to personal reasons and stayed with friends, in hotels in Paarl and also in George.
“It was for my safety that I stayed away from home,” he said.
The prosecution quoted from a statement by his estranged wife that he had repeatedly acted violently towards her. He once came up behind her while she was cooking, and tried to stab her with a knife.
“She said when you became angry your eyes would turn red and you would shiver,” Abrahams said to an audible intake of breath from the Jacobs family.
According to their statement after the murder Marani had arrived at their home on the night of the murder with bloodshot eyes, shivering and jittery.
“The person she speaks about, I do not know,” Marani said.
“It was my wife who was abusive. I cannot say I never lost my temper, but I am a patient person. I was the one who was abused and misused, up to a point that I could not take it any more.
“My wife is violent by nature. I have been through hell.”
During the questioning Marani kept his cool, standing with his hand on his thick novel. He acted like a man with a law degree, which he is.
“I am not like other people. In jail I suffer from insomnia and black-outs. What bothers me most is my safety. I know I can live longer out there than in jail,” he said, a statement contested by the state prosecutor.
“You have been in jail for three weeks and you are in a single cell,” Abrahams said.
To which Marani replied: “If bail is denied, all I can ask for is a speedy trial.”
His co-accused, Adonis, is unemployed, has no passport and has never travelled further than Cape Town.
The state prosecutor called him a liar when he could not remember the previous accusations and convictions against him for sodomy (when he was 13 years old) and several charges of damage to property, theft, robbery and assault with a knife.
When the prosecution prompted Adonis on his friendship with Marani, he replied without hesitation, “We drink beer together and then we talk.”
He had no qualms about answering the question on whether they were together on October 31, the day of the murder.
That was when Magistrate Genie Jacobs intervened, much to the disgust of the court.
“Let him talk, let him spill the beans,” they muttered.
“Everything you say now can be used in later hearings,” the magistrate reminded Adonis.
She halted proceedings to give his lawyer a chance to confer with his client to make sure that he understood the gravity of the matter.
The bail application was then postponed until today.
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