It seems convicted murderess Najwa Petersen, who will hear her fate next Wednesday along with her three co-accused, will escape a life sentence.
The State has asked for the minimum prescribed sentences for all the accused.
This would mean life for Najwa and two hit men also convicted of murdering her entertainer husband Taliep, and 15 years for the fourth accused, Jeff Snyders, found guilty of robbery with aggravating circumstances.
However, Cape High Court Judge Siraj Desai is able to impose lesser sentences if he can find ”substantial and compelling” reasons to do so.
In interaction with Najwa’s advocate, Johann Engelbrecht, on Thursday, Desai suggested that the court might take into account the fact she suffered from a bipolar mood disorder, that her father died after her arrest — for which she reportedly feels responsible — that she had no previous criminal record, and that she had a young daughter.
In addition, Desai said, the court had been unable to find who had actually fired the shot that killed Taliep.
At one point he urged Engelbrecht to ”move beyond substantial and compelling”, and to make suggestions on sentencing options other than life.
”The deceased [Taliep] had he been alive today, would have asked for a lenient sentence because he was of that disposition,” Desai said.
Singer Mynie Grove, a close friend of Taliep’s, told the court earlier that she had known Taliep since the early 1970s, when they were both ”rookie artists”.
She said Taliep had been starting to come into his own as a champion of Cape Flats communities, culture and heritage, and had been bursting with ideas.
”He was like a little fountain that never stopped,” she said.
”He was growing at a breakneck speed, and it was so exhilarating to watch … I don’t want to make him into a saint, but he had so much drive to do the right thing, and he never stopped.”
She said she found it very difficult to understand why Taliep took no action when Najwa stabbed him in the neck in the couple’s bedroom one night nine months before the murder.
”One of my favourite sayings is, when good men do nothing, evil takes hold. I could not understand that he did not pursue [a charge of] attempted murder,” she said.
”It is shocking to know that that voice has been silenced. I don’t understand it.”
Taliep’s father, Mogamat Ladien Petersen, told the court Taliep was the eldest of his 13 children, and had been a friend as much as an ideal son.
He said that when he turned 50, Taliep told him he did not want him to have to work any more.
Every month for the next 27 years Taliep had paid him the salary he would have earned in his former job as a bus driver.
Taliep had also bought him a series of vehicles, sent him to Mecca, taken him to New York on holiday, and had for a period bought him a new suit every year.
”He was so over me, like a hen for a chicken,” he said. ”I lost a good son, a marvellous person.” — Sapa