Bosch widow to sue accusers for defamation

Kim Robinson|Published 23 years ago

More than a month after forensic test results to ascertain the cause of her husband's death were due, Karen-Anne Bosch, widow of Springbok cricketer Tertius Bosch, is launching legal action against her accusers and sections of the media she believes have defamed her.

Her attorney, Patrick Falconer, this week confirmed he was instituting legal action on her behalf on the basis that the tests, carried out by forensic pathologist Dr Reggie Perumal, had not proved that her husband was poisoned as was claimed by private investigator Hennie Els.

Els was employed by Tertius Bosch's sister Rita van Wetten and his brother, Toon Bosch.

While Falconer would not disclose against whom he would bring the defamation action, he said his client's name had been brought into disrepute by individuals and media institutions.

Falconer said that despite a month of testing Tertius Bosch's remains for various poisons, the cause of death had not been established.

"There will be considerable litigation in due course against personal and media entities," he explained.

Falconer would not disclose who these were, saying he was still gathering information regarding the cases.

"We are currently assessing the situation and preparing," said Falconer.

"She (Bosch) has been accused of the most heinous crime that one can contemplate," said Falconer.

"The facts speak for themselves and the facts say they have not been able to find anything," he added.

Perumal said "some bits and pieces of information" from the testing of samples he sent to a laboratory had been fed to him by telephone. "But being telephonic, I need it in print form before I can release the information," he said.

Perumal added that even if he did get the results, Henry Seltzer - Bosch's lover and former lawyer - and the family would need to be consulted first before he could release them to the media.

Tertius Bosch died last Valentine's Day. At the time, it was believed he was suffering from Guillain-Barre syndrome which eventually killed him. But his brother and sister were convinced he had been poisoned and hired Els.

Els claimed the symptoms that Bosch showed could have been brought on by heavy metal poisoning. Police were brought in and an inquest was opened.

Shortly after the exhumation on August 7, newspapers ran stories saying he had been poisoned.

Fuelling speculation was the discovery that Seltzer began complaining of similar symptoms to those of Bosch prior to his death.

After a two-hour post mortem of Bosch's body just after the exhumation, Perumal told the press that "the clinical presentation was one which supported poisoning".

"His skin was dark with white spots, he had lost his hair and there were signs of kidney dysfunction," he said at the time.

He went on to say that he was testing for various forms of heavy metal poisoning, including lead amalgam (used in dentistry), the toxic components of which is mercury. Perumal said the samples taken would be sent first thing to a laboratory and the results would take a between a week and 10 days to come back.

That was on August 7. Five weeks later, the results are still outstanding.

Perumal did not want to comment on whether they had discovered whether Bosch had been poisoned. "I cannot rule on that at this stage."