Zurenah Smit trial: Alleged husband-killer's breakdown delays proceedings until 2026

THE trial against accused husband killer Zurenah Smit has been postponed to next year after she was inconsolable in court Thursday morning. 

This happened after Smit handed over a handwritten letter to the court to apologise for her emotional breakdown in the dock on Wednesday.

Smit is accused of masterminding her husband Stefan Smit's murder at Louisenhof Farm on June 2, 2019. She and her co-accused Derek Sait remain out on bail of R5,000 each until the matter will resume on January 26.

During her continued testimony, Smit said on the fateful night, one of the assailants who entered the farm home, shouted “minutes” which was “pronounced differently” before a shot rang out and “everything went quiet”. 

She said their guest who had joined them for supper that evening, Emilia Allemann, asked if the assailants had left.

According to Smit, Allemann had then told her that Stefan was shot and he was dead.

“I observed the room. I did not see my husband anywhere. He was sitting at the head of the table when I last saw him.

“When I walked around the table I saw him lying on the floor beside the table. There was a lot of blood streaming from his body,” she recalled.

Thursday morning, Smit handed up her apology letter read out by Judge Derek Wille. 

An excerpt from the letter read: “I would like to express my sincere apologies to the court for my emotional breakdown.

“I am honestly embarrassed for making a spectacle of myself and disrupting the court.

“Suffering from PTSD has taken a toll on my ability to compose my emotions. I am trying my best to deal with the trauma with additional counselling. Please accept my sincere apologies,” Smit wrote.

Wille said he accepted the apology and added the letter as an exhibit.

During proceedings, emergency staff were on standby in court in the event that Smit would need medical assistance as she experienced “serious illness” on Wednesday which also prematurely halted proceedings for the day.

In testimony, Smit maintained her innocence when she made bare denials of being involved with robberies and the 2019 murder carried out at Louisenhof Farm where she lived with slain Stefan. 

Smit, who also denied using sleeping tablets to drug her husband in order to gain access to a safe from which R235 000, a firearm, and Kruger Rand coins was stolen, said she had no reason to drug her husband as he was taking care of her and provided for her family.

Smit denied offering money to anybody to have her husband killed.