{"id":34145,"date":"2017-04-25T14:33:52","date_gmt":"2017-04-25T14:33:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/henri-van-breda-denies-south-africa-axe-murders\/"},"modified":"2017-04-25T14:33:46","modified_gmt":"2017-04-25T14:33:46","slug":"henri-van-breda-denies-south-africa-axe-murders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/henri-van-breda-denies-south-africa-axe-murders\/","title":{"rendered":"Henri Van Breda denies South Africa axe murders"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>{A man accused of killing his parents and older brother in a frenzied axe attack in Stellenbosh in South Africa has pleaded not guilty to murder.}<\/p>\n<p>Henri van Breda, 21, is also charged with the attempted murder of his sister who survived with severe head injuries.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Van Breda said in a statement that the murders were carried out by an axe-wielding intruder.<\/p>\n<p>No arrests were made in this horrific case for 18 months until the accused handed himself over in June 2016.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Van Breda&#8217;s sister Marli is expected to be a key witness during the trial in Cape Town.<\/p>\n<p>But there are concerns about how much she remembers about the night of the murders as she suffers from amnesia. She was 16 at the time of the attack.<\/p>\n<p>The run-up to the trial has attracted international interest in the story of a son born into privilege allegedly unleashing a brutal attack on his family, whose fortune was estimated at $16m (\u00a312.5m).<\/p>\n<p>In a statement read out by his lawyer, Mr Van Breda said he was in a toilet when he saw a man wielding an axe hacking his brother Rudi in bed.<\/p>\n<p>His father, who then burst in, &#8220;trying to tackle the attacker&#8221; was also struck by the alleged intruder, he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I also recall the attacker was laughing&#8221;, he added. His mother and sister were then assaulted.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Van Breda is also facing charges of tampering with a crime scene.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-19578 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/_95765478_axemurderer.jpg\" alt=\"Henri van Breda comes from a wealthy family near Cape Town\" \/><\/figure>\n<p>Source:BBC <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>{A man accused of killing his parents and older brother in a frenzied axe attack in Stellenbosh in South Africa has pleaded not guilty to murder.} Henri van Breda, 21, is also charged with the attempted murder of his sister who survived with severe head injuries. Mr Van Breda said in a statement that the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[160],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-34145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-theophile-niyitegeka"],"bylines":[{"id":160,"name":"Th\u00e9ophile Niyitegeka","slug":"theophile-niyitegeka","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":3}],"contributors":[{"id":160,"name":"Th\u00e9ophile Niyitegeka","slug":"theophile-niyitegeka","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":3}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34145\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34145"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=34145"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=34145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}