LANI FOUCHÉ

The minister of police has won its appeal case against Fred van der Vyver, who was in 2011 found to have been maliciously prosecuted by police for the murder of his girlfriend, Inge Lotz in 2005. The police earlier this year appealed the ruling in the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein, which was this morning granted with costs. Van der Vyver will therefor not receive the R46 million in damages he claimed earlier. The panel of judges found that the police did indeed make mistakes during the murder investigations which wrongly implicated him in the murder, but said that investigations into Van der Vyver would have continued, even if there were no mistakes made. Van der Vyver was prosecuted for the murder of Lotz in Stellenbosch in 2005, but was acquitted in 2007. A Western Cape High Court later found that he had been maliciously prosecuted and that numerous errors were made by the state during the investigations. Lotz’s parents earlier called in the help of one of South Africa’s top detectives, Piet Byleveld, to track down their daughter’s murderer. Investigations are ongoing.