British couple Rodney Charles Saunders and Rachel May Saunders during a search for Gladiolus regia in a remote Sekhukuneland valley in Mpumalanga. They were kidnapped and killed in February 2018.
The State had to call more than one medical expert to perform a post-mortem on the bodies of renowned British botanists Rodney Charles Saunders and his wife, Rachel May, after they were found on the Tugela River, with their bodies decomposed and some parts eaten by animals.
The British couple was kidnapped and killed in February 2018 in Eshowe, KwaZulu-Natal. Bibi Fatima Patel and her husband, Sayefudeen Aslam Del Vecchio, and Malawian Mussa Ahmad Jackson are charged with their murders.
The trio is also charged with kidnapping, robbery with aggravating circumstances, and theft. Del Vecchio is further facing a separate charge of malicious damage to property.
He is alleged to have set alight sugarcane fields stretching more than 20km belonging to Tongaat Hulett, causing financial losses estimated at more than R2.3 million.
