Najwa Petersen’s son, Agmat Gamieldien, on Wednesday told the Cape High Court he was ”scared, very scared and shaken” when an intruder entered the room where he slept with his wife and baby at his parental home and demanded money and valuables.
Gamieldien is Petersen’s son from a previous marriage.
She is on trial before Judge Siraj Desai and assessors for the murder of her second husband, well-known entertainer Taliep Petersen. She is in the dock with three co-accused who, at Petersen’s request, were allegedly contracted by a family friend to murder Taliep.
Petersen claims she was in bed asleep when two intruders entered the house late at night. One of them pressed a gun against her head as she lay asleep and demanded money and valuables.
She claims she led the intruder to Gamieldien’s room where the intruder demanded money and valuables from Gamieldien as well.
Gamieldien was called as a witness by the defence team, senior counsel Johan Engelbrecht and attorney Rheeaz Khan, to testify in support of his mother’s version of what happened that night.
Engelbrecht asked him why he did not resist when the intruder confronted him. He replied: ”My wife and baby were in the room with me, and I feared for their safety. Both my wife and mother were in tears, and I just wanted to give the intruder what he wanted so that he would leave us alone.”
Gamieldien said that the intruder later locked him, his wife and the baby in the room, and then locked his mother in another room.
He said he heard the intruder walk towards a staircase, and then he heard the loud bang of a gun being fired.
He told the court: ”I heard footsteps run down the stairs and out of the house.”
He said he was able to make out from the rapid footsteps running down the stairs that there was more than one intruder in the house.
After the shot his mother called to him from the room in which she was locked, and asked if he was OK. He said he shouted back that he was unharmed, and he asked his mother if Taliep was with her and unharmed.
She said he wasn’t, Gamieldien told the court.
Memory lapses
Earlier, Petersen’s defence team called to the witness stand a pharmacist to justify her frequent memory lapses in court, and her answers of ”I can’t remember,” and ”I don’t know.”
Pharmacist Peter Burgers told the court that Petersen’s frequent memory loss during her testimony and cross-examination was caused by the side effects of a ”cocktail” of medication that she takes daily for depression, and other conditions associated with depression such as anxiety and amnesia.
He said Petersen had a history of fits in which her whole body would become stiff, and that she sometimes fell down the stairs at her home as a result of the fits.
The pharmacist said seizures are cured by electro-convulsive therapy (ECT), which is used for the treatment of intractable depression where ordinary medicines do not produce the required results.
He said Petersen had been on four different medicines at the time of the murder. He listed these as Prohexal (an anti depressant), Seroquel (an anti-psychotic for the treatment of bipolar disorder), Alzam for anxiety and Z’dorm, a sleeping tablet.
Burgers added: ”Given the cocktail of medicines she had taken on the night of the murder, combined with possible memory lapses caused by the earlier ECT, it is entirely possible that she experienced confusion, disorientation and memory lapses at the time of the murder.”
The case continues on Thursday. — Sapa