The man who says he has confessed all in the Taliep Petersen killing faced a grilling on Thursday over contradictions between statements he made to police and the version presented in court.
Waheed Hassen, who is on trial along with Petersen’s widow, Najwa, and two other men, gave his version of events on Wednesday, saying it was Najwa who fired the fatal shot.
On Thursday he faced cross-examination by Najwa’s gravelly voiced advocate, Johann Engelbrecht.
Engelbrecht pointed out that in his testimony, Hassen had said he met co-accused Abdoer Emjedi to discuss the ”hit” on the night of December 15 2006, the day before the killing took place. However, in a statement to police he had said the meeting was on December 7.
According to the statement, Emjedi and another co-conspirator, Fahiem Hendricks, had pestered him with phone calls for the rest of that week to see if he had managed to secure a gun for the job.
Hassen told the court that the December 7 date was wrong, and that when he made the statement he had been guessing because he did not have a calendar, or cellphone records of the calls involved.
Asked by Engelbrecht why he did not mention in his first statement to police that Najwa helped tie Taliep’s feet with a doily, as he claimed in a later statement and in court, Hassen said he had felt at the time it was ”unrealistic” that a woman could be involved in her husband’s death.
”I put it to you that she was not,” said Engelbrecht, to a murmur from the public gallery.
”She was 100% involved,” replied Hassen.
The trial continues. — Sapa