The man accused of recruiting the killers of musician Taliep Petersen took the stand in the Cape High Court on Tuesday to proclaim his innocence.
It was the first time Abdoer Emjedi has made any public statement about his involvement in the December 2006 slaying.
He denied a claim made earlier in the trial by a state witness, Fahiem Hendricks, that at Hendricks’s request he recruited co-accused Waheed Hassen and Jefferson Snyders to carry out the killing.
”I’ve got no knowledge of that; I never did,” Emjedi said.
He said at the time of the killing he was working for Hendricks and his brother, Ebrahim, as a tow-truck driver, and staying in the brother’s home because he was having marital problems.
He and Fahiem Hendricks’s wife would have long conversations while Hendricks was out of the house, in which she would advise him about his marriage.
This could be one reason Hendricks had tried to implicate him in the killing, Emjedi said.
Hendricks ”never liked the idea” of these conversations and at one stage warned him about this.
Another reason could be that Hendricks knew he had already tangled with the law — he had spent 15 months awaiting trial in a case that was eventually dropped.
Emjedi said he knew his co-accused, Waheed Hassen, who has said in statements admitted in court that Emjedi recruited him.
Emjedi said Hassen came round to the Hendricks house when Fahiem was not there to collect a computer ”box” and wires.
Though Hassen handed over R4Â 300 for the goods, Emjedi never passed the money on to Fahiem, claiming instead that Hassen did not pay. — Sapa