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Charges of murder and conspiracy to commit murder against a Durban teenager in connection with her mother\u2019s killing are likely to be dropped. <\/p>\n
Astrid Tavira, 19, was charged after her mother, Freda Tavira, 50, was found strangled and raped in her New Dawn Park, Newlands East, home in August last year. She had been assaulted, and her wedding ring, cash, TV and bakkie were missing. <\/p>\n
In September last year, Astrid\u2019s boyfriend, Waleed Karriem, who is also her first cousin, pleaded guilty in the Durban High Court to murdering and raping his aunt. <\/p>\n
Karriem, who was let out of jail on early parole in 2009 after serving time for another rape conviction, claimed in his guilty plea that he had killed Tavira so that Astrid could claim a life insurance policy and pay off their debts. <\/p>\n
He said in his plea that he had told Astrid of his plan to murder her mother, but she had not said anything about it. <\/p>\n
During her bail application, Astrid told the court she had spoken to Karriem about the murder. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe spoke to me about it on Monday night, but I kept quiet,\u201d she said. \u201cHe asked me again on Tuesday morning (August 23), and I said \u2018yes\u2019 and I kissed him goodbye.\u201d <\/p>\n
Karriem is serving two life sentences for the rape and murder, and eight years for theft. <\/p>\n
Astrid was expected to go on trial before Durban Regional Court Magistrate Nanette Otto yesterday, but prosecutor Calvin Govender said the case had hit a snag. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
He said that Karriem, the State\u2019s key witness, was no longer going to be called to testify, which would have a major impact on the State\u2019s case. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe matter will have to be referred to the director of public prosecutions for a directive on what should be done,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Govender added that Astrid, who was denied bail and has been in jail since her arrest in September, could be released on a warning. <\/p>\n
The case was adjourned to March 22. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Charges of murder and conspiracy to commit murder against a Durban teenager in connection with her mother\u2019s killing are likely to be dropped. Astrid Tavira, 19, was charged after her mother, Freda Tavira, 50, was found strangled and raped in her New Dawn Park, Newlands East, home in August last year. She had been assaulted, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[8275,953,2143],"class_list":{"0":"post-8246","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-durban","8":"tag-newspaper","9":"tag-the-mercury","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8246\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}