Lani Fouché -

Bloemfontein - The police minister has won an appeal against Fred van der Vyfer, who in 2011 was found to have been maliciously prosecuted by police for the murder of his girlfriend, Inge Lotz in 2005. The police appealed the decision earlier this year was granted with costs in the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein this morning. Van der Vyver will therefore not receive the R46 million in damages he claimed. The panel of judges found that the police did in fact make mistakes during the murder investigation which wrongly implicated Van der Vyfer in the murder, but said that investigations into him would have continued despite any mistakes. Van der Vyver was prosecuted for the murder of Lotz in Stellenbosch in 2005, but was acquitted in 2007. A Western Cape Court later found that he had been maliciously prosecuted and that the state made numerous errors during the investigation. Lotz's parents earlier called in the help of one of South Africa's top detectives, Piet Byleveld, to track down their daughter's murderer. Investigations are ongoing.