South Africa

South Africa

Analysis: Van Breda axe murder case raises familiar questions in a crime-torn SA

Analysis: Van Breda axe murder case raises familiar questions in a crime-torn SA

This week, Henri van Breda is taking the stand in the Western Cape High Court. The 21-year-old stands accused of murdering his mother, father and brother in a case so gruesome that it has attracted international attention. His testimony in his own defence is his last chance to convince the court that he is not guilty of the crimes. With no other suspects in sight, his is an upward climb. But while the details of the case may be exceptionally awful, the trial has played host to some all-too familiar South African themes. By REBECCA DAVIS.

Did you kill your father with an axe?” defence lawyer Pieter Botha asked triple murder-accused Henri van Breda on Tuesday.

No,” van Breda replied calmly.

Did you kill your brother with an axe?” Botha asked.

No,” van Breda said.

Did you kill your mother with an axe?” Botha pressed further.

No,” van Breda repeated.

The question arising is: then who did?

In Henri van Breda’s account, his family was set upon by at least two intruders – masked, black, and Afrikaans-speaking – who entered their Stellenbosch home without detection and proceeded to slaughter father Martin, mother Teresa, brother Rudi, and leave sister Marli for dead. That they barely harmed Henri is something he cannot explain.

In Van Breda’s account, these attackers managed to bypass all security on the heavily fortified De Zalze estate, avoid capture by CCTV footage, enter via the estate’s perimeter and make their way to the middle of the complex where the Van Breda house was situated. Upon accessing the house, their presence failed to wake any family members or disturb the family dog Sasha, who was known to bark loudly when one of the family’s two domestic workers entered.

In Van Breda’s account, one of the intruders laughed loudly throughout the attack, like a bad guy in a movie. Despite the fact that the home was stocked with top-of-the-range electronic equipment – including a brand new sound system – the intruders chose to steal nothing. They left the home and the estate the way they entered: without a trace.

Van Breda coolly conceded on the stand on Tuesday that his family had no known enemies; nobody who could be said to bear a grudge against them. His uncle had previously testified similarly. His father, Martin van Breda, was the director of at least 25 companies – mostly in property and education – but all of them seemingly of unimpeachable repute. The court heard that Van Breda senior experienced no bad blood with colleagues or business partners.

Henri van Breda has thus far offered no detailed scenario as to who might have committed these terrible crimes, and why, if not him. All he has presented the court is the same scapegoat offered up by Oscar Pistorius in the athlete’s own murder trial three years ago: the spectre of the black intruder.

The latest crime statistics, delivered by police last week, make it clear that the fear of ordinary South Africans of being attacked in their homes is well-founded. The possibility that a South African’s life may end in murder is plausible – particularly if you are poor, black, or living in an isolated rural area.

But like most well-off South Africans, the Van Breda family took practical measures to stay inoculated from crime. Henri van Breda testified on Tuesday that after his family returned to South Africa after some years in Australia, “the intention was always to stay in a secure estate somewhere in Cape Town”. They found that apparent haven in the De Zalze estate in Stellenbosch: a complex equipped with a perimeter alarm system, electric fences, CCTV monitoring, dog patrols and strict visitor registration processes.

Here the Van Bredas could live lives of apparent peace and safety, sheltered by the carapace of wealth and privilege. Van Breda told the court of summers spent boating and skiing. Their home was serviced daily by two domestic workers on alternating shifts. Henri van Breda was planning to spend 2015 on a “gap year” from his studies in physics, intending to undertake a diving course in KwaZulu-Natal recommended by a cousin.

Van Breda said that the family felt so comfortable in their environment that it was routine for them to leave the back door unlocked, as they had on the night of the murders.

These idyllic lives were shattered, in Van Breda’s telling, by the seemingly motiveless violence of black South Africans. It is a dark sign of the times that two of the factors that have caused public suspicion to rest upon Henri are the fact that none of the family’s possessions were stolen, and neither of the two women present was sexually assaulted. Had either of these two additional crimes taken place, the plausibility of Henri’s story would probably be heightened in the public imagination.

But even in a country as cynical and crime-ravaged as South Africa, Henri van Breda’s narrative has raised eyebrows. This is the case even in the absence of a clear motive for Van Breda’s own possible commission of the crimes. A vast inheritance; a controlling father; a goody-two-shoes brother with whom Henri had been in unending competition – all these possible explanations have been raised around braais and water coolers, at dinner parties and in taxis, without any firm evidence to support such scenarios.

The proving of motive is not necessary for a verdict in criminal law, however. Even those who firmly believe that Oscar Pistorius intentionally murdered Reeva Steenkamp would have to concede that no watertight story was presented to the court in that case to explain what drove such a terrible impulse. If Henri van Breda is found guilty, it may similarly be in the absence of any firm rationale for the crimes.

The figure presented by Van Breda in the dock on Tuesday offers little clues as to the psychology of a man accused of destroying his family. His demeanour ranged from composed to stressed – manifested in sweating, lip-licking and chest-heaving – but with little emotional display visible beyond this.

He is no humble plaas seun: Van Breda came across as urbane and suave, with no trace of his Afrikaans roots in his accent. He is clearly intelligent, with a curiously technical vocabulary: he described the convulsing of his dying brother as “not a motivated, goal-oriented movement”. He is prone to the phrase: “I don’t dispute that.”

As he grows more accustomed to his situation in the dock, he has also mustered dry attempts at humour. Clarifying his suggestion that perhaps the alleged intruders to the estate could have gained entry by borrowing a key from a resident, he said: “I think it’s a reasonable possibility.”

Asked by state prosecutor Susan Galloway whether he grasped the distinction between a “possibility” and a “reasonable possibility”, he replied: “Reasonably”, with the hint of a smile.

Reasonable” is, of course, a critical concept in law. All that Van Breda requires to go free is for the court to find “reasonable doubt” that he did not commit the crimes of which he is accused.

There are two options as to what really happened. Either Henri van Breda murdered his family in a fit of psychopathic violence, or he is the victim of a crime of almost unimaginable randomness and atrocity. The terrible reality about South Africa is that either scenario could, ultimately, be true. We’ve seen both these movies before: the one where a man – always a man – explodes in the ultimate manifestation of rage and entitlement; and the one where lives are taken by strangers in an act of motiveless evil.

It falls to the court to determine which story is the more likely in this instance – but it’s a chilling indictment of South Africa in 2017 that neither scenario would be met with total disbelief by a public worn down by daily evidence of the violence which shrouds this country’s dark heart. DM

Photo: Henri van Breda, who is accused of a triple murder, arrives at the Western Cape High Court for his trial in Cape Town, South Africa, 26 April 2017. Photo: EPA/NIC BOTHMA

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