Taliep Petersen’s death looked ”suspect” from the start, his younger brother, Igsaan, told the Cape High Court on Friday.
Igsaan was the third witness to be called in the trial of Taliep’s wife, Najwa, and three alleged hit men, who are accused of murdering him on the night of December 16 2006.
Igsaan said he received a call that night from his sister that there had been a robbery at the Petersens’ Cape Town home and that Taliep might have been shot.
He and his son sped to the house and found Taliep lying in a pool of blood, his hands tied behind his back with cable tie, and a bloody gag in his mouth.
”His feet were also bound with a piece of cloth and an electric cable — the normal two-phase cable that you use for any small electrical appliances.
”By the look of things I saw that he was gone”.
He and his son kicked down a bedroom door to free Najwa, who had been locked in.
”Accused number one [Najwa], to my surprise, did not even come out to inspect what happened to her husband,” Igsaan said.
He said he stood back and watched as members of Najwa’s family and the police arrived.
When her father, Suleiman Dirk, arrived and spoke to Najwa ”the first thing that came out of his mouth was ‘how much money did they take, what happened, how much money did they take?”’.
”She did reply to him a total, but I was not interested in the total,” Igsaan said.
Najwa also told her father: ”Daddy, they hit me here with a gun,” indicating her head, but there were no bruises visible.
Igsaan said at that stage he was ”really suspicious” about what was going on.
”… the whole thing looked suspect to me, to be honest. It looked suspect. I turned around to my son and indicated to him they had my brother killed.” — Sapa