TRIAL ON AT HIGH COURT FOR 2012 MURDER CASE

A young man on trial for his 21-year-old girlfriend’s murder at Tuvaruhu in 2012 has allegedly blame her death on the prosecution’s key witness.

Brian Alagere’s trial started today at the High Court.

He is charged with one count of murder for allegedly knocking his girlfriend’s head with a stone and rolling her body down the Tuvaruhu Hill in September 2012.

Crown Prosecutor Mirriam Manata in her opening statement this morning told the Court Mr Alagere deliberately set up the murder so he could blame it on the other young man who was with him at that time.The young man is the prosecution’s key witness.

Mrs Manata alleged the accused and the deceased were involved in an abusive relationship, leading to her family’s refusal to let her continue the relationship.

She alleged that in the evening of September 24th, 2012, the accused arranged to meet the deceased at Tuvaruhu Hill.

She alleged before going up, he went to the home of the witness and asked him to go for a stroll with him.

The prosecutor said the accused and the deceased had a discussion some distance from where the witness stood before he heard her shout.

She claimed the witness saw the accused took out a knife and stabbed the deceased on her left side and she fell to a sitting position on the ground.

When he allegedly tried to find out what was going on, the accused told him to back off and threatened to stab him.

The witness said he left the hilltop and the two of them behind.

A group of students found the skeletal remains of the deceased at Tuvaruhu early October 2012.

Forensic examination and DNA tests in Australia were able to identify the remains.

A post-mortem conducted in May 2013 formed the opinion that the cause of her death was blunt force trauma to the head.

The case continues at the High Court.