One of the men charged with the murder of entertainer Taliep Petersen pleaded with a co-accused not to carry out the killing, the Cape High Court heard on Monday.
Waheed Hassen was under cross-examination for the third day on his evidence that, although he was recruited for the ”hit”, he went to the Petersen home in Athlone, Cape Town, with the idea of carrying out only a staged armed robbery.
He said he took co-accused Jeff Snyders, who worked in his vehicle workshop, with him on the night of December 16 2006.
But he explained to Snyders only that the people in the house wanted to be robbed so they could make a fraudulent insurance claim.
They entered the house and tied Taliep’s wrists with a cable tie, but ”everything changed” when Taliep’s wife, Najwa, who is also on trial, emerged from a bedroom and demanded to know when they were going to finish Taliep off.
Hassen told the court he immediately heard from Snyders’s tone of voice that he was upset. Snyders said he was not there to kill anyone.
”He also said, fuck this job, I want fuck all to do with this job,” Hassen said.
Snyders went down the stairs towards the front door of the house, pleading with Hassen to come with him, but Najwa was pulling his [Hassen’s] left arm, Hassen said. He previously told the court Snyders was not present when Najwa pulled the trigger of the pistol he brought with him, and killed Taliep.
”I wanted to go back down the steps. I don’t know why I did not have the courage to do so. If I did, he [Taliep] would still be alive today,” Hassen told the court.
”I found myself in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Hassen said when he rejoined Snyders in their bakkie outside the house after the shooting, Snyders was very disturbed, and did not want to talk to him.
”He said, ‘What the fuck was that?’,” said Snyders’s advocate, Roelf Konstabel.
”He was very angry,” Hassen confirmed.
The next morning, at the workshop, Snyders brought in a copy of a newspaper carrying the news of Taliep’s murder, and threw it in front of Hassen, saying: ”What the fuck happened here?”
Hassen said he passed on to Snyders R6 000 of the R27 000 Najwa gave him on the scene of the killing.
However, he did not tell Snyders that the cash came from the ”blood money”. He had owed Snyders money for wages.
”He said he did not want anything to do with any money that was taken from the house because it’s blood money, and he washes his hands of any responsibility,” Hassen said.
Weeping
He had earlier, in his evidence-in-chief, told the court that though he had been married for eight years, he and his wife had no children because she had suffered four miscarriages.
He also told how, at the Petersens’ home, he kissed the head of the sleeping infant of Achmat Gamieldien, Najwa’s son by a previous marriage, and told Gamieldien and his wife Insaaf: ”It’s a lovely baby.”
This was after he had taken R1 600 in cash, watches, a cellphone and a digital camera from the Gamieldiens’ bedroom.
Questioned on the incident on Monday by advocate Laureen Abrahams, for his co-accused, Abdoer Emjedi, Hassen told the court: ”I like babies very much,” and began to weep.
Judge Siraj Desai gave him a moment to compose himself, and Hassen turned away from the public gallery and wiped his eyes with a tissue.
Hassen said though Gamieldien asked him for some the money back to buy nappies for the baby, he did not return any of it.
Asked why he would kiss a baby, but not give back money for its nappies, Hassen said: ”I thought they were people with a lot of money, and I was busy with a robbery. How can I now give money back?”
Under questioning by prosecutor Shireen Riley, Hassen confirmed that he had sought twice, in June last year and February this year, to negotiate a guilty plea with the state, but had both times been rejected.
On his advocate’s advice, he had decided instead to plead not guilty in the trial. — Sapa