In a tense cross-examination on Friday, State prosecutor Advocate Aradhana Heeramun grilled Jacquen “Boeta” Appollis about why he failed to open a case or report the alleged assault he claims to have endured at the hands of police officers during the early days of the Joshlin Smith investigation.
Image: Picture: Mandilakhe Tshwete
Jacquen ‘Boeta’ Appollis returned to the witness stand on Monday for continued cross-examination in the trial-within-a-trial of the Joshlin Smith case at the Western Cape High Court, where the admissibility of his and co-accused Steveno van Rhyn’s confessions is being challenged.
Appollis has alleged that he was assaulted and tortured by police on 4 March 2024 at the Sea Border Police Unit offices in Saldanha Bay days after the six-year-old went missing from her Middelpos home on 19 February.
Her mom, Racquel ‘Kelly’ Smith, Appollis, and Van Rhyn were arrested on 5 March 2024.
Appollis claims detectives told him not to reveal the true cause of his injuries during a medical examination and says he was forced to confess under duress.
However, State prosecutor Aradhana Heeramun scrutinised the fact that this critical claim about police instructing him to lie to the doctor was not raised during the earlier cross-examination of Warrant Officer Heinrich Schmidlin.
The State argued that this undermines Appollis’s credibility and suggested it was a fabricated claim made only during his testimony.
Judge Nathan Erasmus echoed this concern, questioning why Appollis, who had been present throughout the trial, failed to alert his defence counsel when Sergeant Schmidlin testified.
“Can you explain why you wouldn’t remember the only thing that this is about?”
Further inconsistencies emerged regarding Appollis’s explanation of his injuries.
In previous police statements and his confession, he said he was injured jumping in and out of a police van.
However, during his testimony, he admitted those claims were false and said he had made them up because he feared the officers present at the hospital.
The State highlighted contradictions between his initial warning statement, his confession, and his recent testimony, stating that none of these discrepancies were previously challenged during the cross-examination of key police witnesses such as Colonel Adrian Pretorius and Sergeant Fortuin.
Appollis maintained that he made up the stories out of fear but insisted that the assaults and coercion truly happened.
He claimed that everything he told his lawyer was truthful, even if some details were not put to witnesses during the trial.
He also repeated allegations that police instructed him to implicate his co-accused, Kelly and Maka Lima, falsely, in Joshlin’s disappearance.
According to Appollis, officers told him to say that Kelly sent him and Van Rhyn to take Joshlin to Maka Lima in exchange for R20,000.
He said he was taken to Kelly, who was at the FCS unit, and was told to repeat the narrative. However, when asked why this version of events was not put to senior officers Brigadier Hanana and Captain Lombard, both of whom testified about what took place during the alleged interaction, Appollis claimed he didn’t see them there and had mentioned this account to his lawyer.
The State rejected this explanation as “highly improbable,” noting that Appollis had several opportunities to challenge witness testimony and failed to do so.
The cross-examination continues.
mandilakhe.tshwete@inl.co.za