Prosecutor adds rape charge as De Klerk murder trial opens

THE trial of the man alleged to have murdered South Africa’s former first lady, Marika de Klerk, began in sensational fashion yesterday when a charge of rape was added by state prosecutor Tessa Heunis at the last moment.

Advocate Heunis said the charges against Luyanda Mboniswa, a security guard at Mrs de Klerk’s luxury beachfront apartment in Cape Town, had been amended to include rape after two forensic experts re-examined the evidence.

Mrs de Klerk, ex-wife of former South African president, FW de Klerk, was viciously murdered last December, stabbed in the back, strangled and now apparently raped.

Marika de Klerk’s murder brought a savage end to a life lived large - at heights of achievement and in depths of despair.

Early romance with the future president of her country, an apparently happy marriage and then a painful divorce from the man who brought an end to apartheid saw her life compared to Princess Diana’s.

Her death seemed no less bleak and heartbreaking than Diana’s.

Her murder was the most high-profile killing since the African National Congress (ANC) came to power eight years ago. It is a country plagued by violent crime in which there have been more than 21,000 officially recorded murders in the past 12 months.

Ms Heunis, in her opening statement, said the broken blade of a serrated steak knife was found in Mrs de Klerk’s back. Cuts on the victim’s arms suggested she had tried to fight off her attacker.

But the killer then gripped her throat with such force that several small bones broke in her neck.

Former President de Klerk, who divorced Marika, 64, in 1998 after 39 years of marriage, sat among 92 witnesses who will be called to give evidence in the Cape high court.

He looked grim and subdued, while the 21-year-old accused, dressed in a smart, three-piece grey suit, looked jaunty and relaxed.

FW de Klerk was due to be the first witness called yesterday, but instead the judge and lawyers for the prosecution and defence went to the scene of the murder to be taken through the alleged events there by investigating detectives.

Mr De Klerk will be the first witness called today in a trial that is expected to last at least a month.

A week after he divorced Marika, Mr de Klerk married his mistress, a rich Greek divorcee, Elita Georgiadis, some 20 years younger than Marika.

Mrs de Klerk was the country’s first lady from 1989 to 1994, the period during which her then husband released ANC leader Nelson Mandela from life imprisonment and dismantled the apartheid system.

In her biography, Marika - a Journey Through Summer and Winter, the former first lady described the closing chapter of her marriage to FW: "He walked to the front door with his suitcases and we stretched out our arms to one and other, hugged one and other and shook like reeds in the wind.

"He cried, so did I. I told him: ‘If you change your mind, I’ll forgive you everything - up to 70 x 7.

"He whispered: ‘I’m certain about my decision. Stop hoping’."

In July 1999 a twice-married South African property developer, Johan Koekemoer, 13 years her junior, proposed to Marika.

Within hours of the engagement, Mr Koekemoer was charged with several allegations of fraud.

He suffered a nervous breakdown, cancelled his wedding to Marika and later married another woman.

Mrs de Klerk said in her book: "I just want to disappear into the sunset, disappear from the public eye."

Mrs de Klerk battled severe depression in the final years of her life and had begun treatment shortly before she died.