Friday, February 2, 2024 – One of the two men accused of setting their dog on a worker had previously skipped the country for 10 years while out on bail for the murder of two men.
Pieter Groenewald, 63, a former SA Defence Force colonel,
appeared in the Groblersdal magistrate’s court in Limpopo alongside Stephan
Greef, 27, his stepson, on charges of assault on their employee Veneruru
Kavari.
In his bail application affidavit read in court by their
lawyer Johan van Wyk on Wednesday, Groenewald said he was not a flight risk and
would surrender his passport to the state.
Sowetan has established from court records of Groenewald’s
1990 murder case that he fled the country after he was accused of the
execution-style murders of Simon Koba, 28, and Prince Makena, 30, and injured
Xavier Lekgoate in a road rage incident.
On Wednesday, the state revealed that Groenewald has
previous convictions on two counts of murder and one of attempted murder. He
was convicted in 2002, more than decade after he had been on the run and living
in Portugal after his escape from the country.
He was sentenced to 20 years by the Pretoria Regional Court
for the double murders and attempted murder.
According to court records, Groenewald was arrested three
days after the 1990 shooting incident and was granted bail before he fled the
country with the assistance of his commander.
The court papers revealed that the commander gave him
$10,000 (about R187,000) and two passports, and they both fled to Portugal,
where Groenewald lived for 10 years and started a new life at the age of 29.
Attempts by the SA government to have him extradited failed.
While in Portugal, Groenewald was arrested for being in
illegal possession of surveillance equipment and in 2000 he returned to SA and
was arrested for the 1990 crime.
In 2005 after serving three years of his sentence, then SA
president Thabo Mbeki granted him Groenewald a six-month amnesty and he was
eligible for parole by September 2009. However, the department of correctional
services (DCS) objected to the parole, and in 2010 the Pretoria High Court
ordered that he be released.
Department spokesperson Singabakho Nxumalo confirmed that
Groenewald’s parole expired in March 2022, meaning he had been a free man for
nearly two years before he was accused of assaulting his employee last month.
Nxumalo said: “Inmate Hendrick Groenewald was previously
sentenced to 19 years for murder by the Pretoria regional court on 19/03/2003.
“He was later admitted at Middelburg community corrections under Witbank
management area as a parolee from 22/01/2010 until his sentence expired on
18/03/2022. “He was no longer under the system of community corrections when he
committed his current crime."
Motivating during his bail application this week for the
assault charge, Groenewald submitted an affidavit in which he claimed he was
not a flight risk and that he had about 80 employees in his business, Wildlife
Investigation and Protection Services (Wips) in Kwaggafontein, Mpumalanga. The
company specialises in anti-animal poaching surveillance and security supplies.
Sowetan has learned that Groenewald is the son of the late
Tienie Groenewald, a former highly decorated chief director of the SADF
intelligence unit. The two ran Wips together.
Court records revealed that on the night of the murder in
1990, Groenewald had been a passenger in Brian Chester-Browne’s vehicle. They
were driving from a shooting range in Cullinan, 30km east of Pretoria, when
they came across Koba, Makena and Lekgoate, who were in a Nissan vehicle headed
in the opposite direction near Mamelodi.
According to the documents, the occupants of the Nissan
accused Groenewald and Chester-Browne of throwing a stone towards their car,
forcing them to stop. Groenewald was the only man armed and he asked the
occupants of the Nissan if they knew of the Wit Wolwe (White Wolves) – an
ultra-right and white supremist terrorist group that operated in Tshwane in the
1980s.
He then started shooting at the three men, instantly killing
both Koba and Makena while Lekgoate hid in the bushes bleeding. Groenewald and
his friend fled the scene and did not report the incident to the police.
According to the court documents, once Groenewald got home,
he called his commander and informed him about the incident and he then shaved
his full beard in an attempt to disguise himself. However, Lekgoate would later
recognise him in an police identity parade a week after the shooting.
In the current assault case, it’s alleged that Greef accused
Kavari, a security guard, of being drunk while on duty at work and this
escalated into an argument.
It is alleged that Greef and Groenewald then assaulted
Kavari and set one of their dogs on him. Their first court appearance was
marred with violence as a group of white men waving old South African flags
clashed with the police outside court.
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