South Africa: Man charged in 3 ax killings released on bail

No arrests have yet been made.

Henri van Breda, the son of the Stellenbosch family killed by axe in January past year, was granted R100,000 bail on Tuesday.

His sister, Marli, was critically injured in the assault.

He has been charged with the murders of three members of the Van Breda family in January a year ago.

The van Breda family.

The court today heard that the accused’s first phone call after the incident was to his girlfriend before phoning emergency services three hours later.

Henri is represented by advocate Pieter Botha, who assisted advocate Francois van Zyl in defending British businessman Shrien Dewani following his wife Anni’s murder in Cape Town in 2010.

However van Breda handed himself in on Monday over the killings, which made headlines across South Africa.

The arrest comes after Henri had previously told police that his family were attacked by an intruder who knocked him unconscious in their home at the De Zalza golf estate in January 2015.

Mr van Breda was managing director of the Australian franchise of Engel & Völkers, an worldwide company that sells and rents “premium residential property, commercial real estate and yachts”, according to its website.

Karen Sadler, whose daughter went to Presbyterian Ladies College in Perth with Marli for about seven years, described the van Breda family as “a lovely, gorgeous family and very close”.

The family returned to their native South Africa in 2014.