Latest news with #MarkLifman
The Herald
14-05-2025
- The Herald
Mark Lifman murder suspects fail in high court bid for bail
An appeal to be released on bail by two men charged with the premeditated murder of businessman Mark Lifman has been rejected by the Western Cape High Court. Johannes Hendrik Jacobs and Gert Johannes Bezuidenhout were arrested on November 3 last year and charged with the murder of Lifman outside the Garden Route Mall in George. They applied for bail on January 16. Investigating officer Lt-Col Christiaan Daniel Dirk van Reenen opposed the application, providing a timeline showing Bezuidenhout obtained permits on October 29 for several firearms from Professional Protection Alternatives — a security company in Cape Town. Two days later they booked into the African Sun Guest House in George. Lifman was shot dead in the mall parking lot on November 3. CCTV footage implicated a hatchback which was later stopped near De Vlugt in the direction towards Uniondale and the men were arrested with 9mm ammunition, wigs, black helmets, a roll of duct tape, cellphones, keys and a dashcam.
News24
08-05-2025
- News24
Alleged Mark Lifman hitmen appeal to Western Cape High Court for bail
Judgment has been reserved in the bail appeal of two alleged hitmen accused of murdering Cape Town businessman Mark Lifman. The defence argued the Magistrate's Court wrongly required the accused to prove they would be acquitted at trial to be granted bail. The State says there is overwhelming circumstantial evidence linking the accused to the planned and premeditated murder. Judgment has been reserved in the Western Cape High Court in a bail appeal by Gert Bezuidenhout and Johannes Hendrik Jacobs, who are accused of killing alleged underworld figure Mark Lifman. They are challenging the George Magistrate's Court's decision to deny them bail earlier this year, arguing that the lower court misapplied the law. The pair's advocate, Mike Hellens SC, argued the magistrate had erred in interpreting the legal standard for bail under Section 60(11)(a) of the Criminal Procedure Act. According to Hellens, the court incorrectly required the accused to prove they would likely be acquitted at trial, a higher threshold than what the law demanded. 'The act does not require an applicant for bail to demonstrate a likelihood of acquittal,' he submitted. 'The magistrate failed to appreciate that the applicants did not rely on the weakness of the State's case, but rather on strong personal circumstances and the absence of direct evidence.' Bezuidenhout and Jacobs have been in custody since their arrest shortly after Lifman's murder in November 2024. They were denied bail in January when the George Magistrate's Court found they failed to show exceptional circumstances. Hellens criticised the magistrate for failing to consider their personal circumstances, including fixed addresses, property ownership, and an ability to post bail, as exceptional. He also questioned why they were still being held when no firearm residue was found on them, and the investigation remains incomplete. Responding for the State, advocate Evadne Kortje argued that there was compelling circumstantial evidence against the pair. She said police seized items, including 9mm ammunition, three wigs, helmets, duct tape, phones and dashcam footage linking them to the crime. Kortje told the court that Jacobs was identified as the driver of the getaway vehicle, while Bezuidenhout's fingerprints were found on the altered number plates of a VW Polo linked to the murder. She added that both accused have connections to countries outside South Africa, raising flight risk concerns, despite having surrendered their passports. 'The appellants have the means and can afford to forfeit any bail amount,' Kortje said. 'Extradition is possible, although costly and will wholly depend on the country.' The court is expected to deliver judgment on the appeal next week. In the meantime, the main case has been transferred to the George Regional Court for trial.
News24
07-05-2025
- News24
Lifman and ‘brotherhood' focused on bringing peace, not committing crime, argues lawyer
Intercepted phone calls of the late Mark Lifman's associates' conversations do not prove criminality, their lawyer argues. The advocate submitted that they only show that they were trying to bring peace during a disruptive period in the nightclub industry. Although Lifman was murdered last year, his secretly recorded conversations still loom large in the Brian Wainstein trial with regards to violence in some clubs in Cape Town. The memory of Mark Lifman still loomed large during the trial within a trial in the Brian Wainstein murder case in the Western Cape High Court on Wednesday. Lifman was assassinated in George last November, allegedly by two highly trained security company contractors. Still, his voice lives on in the secretly recorded phone calls the State wants admitted as evidence of alleged complicity in a vast case involving a period of violent disruption in Cape Town's glamorous clubbing industry. Advocate Amanda Nel, the lawyer for two of the 13 remaining co-accused, Jerome Booysen and Andre Naude, has been picking apart transcripts of some of the 38 calls that the police secretly listened in on between 2014 and 2017 during a drugs investigation targeting Booysen. Nel contended that the conversations merely show Lifman and Booysen's attempts at bringing peace to a difficult situation involving Booysen's brother Colin and an alleged associate of Colin, Kamaal Naidoo. Nel said the calls show that Lifman, Booysen and Naude were worried about being called gangsters and thugs, and their reputation as businessmen, and that they were not plotting any crimes. She submitted that the calls do not show a pattern of criminality and gangsterism as alleged, just that they were trying to bring calm to the situation. Nel said that in many cases, recordings of Booysen indicate that he only found out about fights and shootings after the fact - either from an associate who told him about it - and the first time he heard about the shooting at Café Caprice in Camps Bay, was when he read a report about it on News24. READ | Booysen, Naude fight to exclude brotherhood's intercepted calls from trial evidence With regards to Lifman, his calls were about trying to figure out how to resolve problems. She said that there are also no calls by Lifman to Wainstein on the day before or after the murder of Wainstein in August 2017. Nel said Lifman and Booysen also discussed at length what to do about the 'disruption' his brother Colin was bringing to their business interests, allegedly with Naidoo. But they did not want Colin to get hurt. The court has already heard that Naude was tasked with separating Colin from their 'brotherhood' for the sake of peace, and that Colin appeared to throw his weight behind Nafiz Modack, who was allegedly poaching the brotherhood's security contracts. All of the accused in the trial have pleaded not guilty. Booysen and Naude were shocked by the murder of Lifman, who the investigator described as a mediator between gangs and a financial advisor to them. They have been attending as many of the court appearances of Lifman's alleged hitmen Gert Bezuidenhout and Hendrik Jacobs. Bezuidenhout and Jacobs are expected to appeal the refusal of their bail in the Western Cape High Court on Thursday. The trial within a trial continues.
