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'I was at Taliep's murder'
18/04/2008 21:20 - (SA)
Cape Town - Though one of Taliep Petersen's alleged killers has now formally admitted being at the scene of the murder, another is still fighting hard to keep his confessions out of court.
It has emerged that not only did the second man, Waheed Hassen, make a formal statement to police, but he also gave them 15 pages of handwritten notes on the December 2006 killing.
The trial of Taliep's wife Najwa and three men she allegedly hired to carry out the execution-style shooting went over into a trial-within-a-trial on Friday - to deal with admissibility of statements Hassen and Jefferson Snyders made shortly after their arrest.
Earlier this week the two men indicated through their lawyers that they would oppose the state's bid to hand the potentially damning documents in as evidence.
However, in a surprise move on Friday morning, Snyder's advocate Roelf Konstabel told Cape High Court Judge Siraj Desai that his client would no long oppose admission of his statement.
In the two-page document, Snyders said he went with Hassen to the Petersen's Athlone, Cape Town, home on the night of December 16 2006 to do what Hassen described to him only as "a job".
'I am co-operating'
They went in through an open gate and front door, and found Taliep upstairs watching television.
Najwa, who was at one stage "half hanging on to him (Taliep)", told him and Hassen that her husband had to be shot that night.
Since the killing, he and Hassen had never talked to each other about what happened, but the murder was constantly on his mind.
A member of the police's organised crime unit, Captain Jonathan Morris, told the court that two days after Hassen's arrest in June last year, he encountered him in the office of investigating officer Captain Joe Dryden.
"When I opened the door the accused smiled at me and said 'sir, I am co-operating'," Morris said.
"While you were in the office, were there any threats or assault on the accused?" asked prosecutor Susan Galloway.
"No, your honour," replied Morris.
He said that in addition to a formal confession made before a police officer after his arrest, Hassen wrote 15 pages of "letters" on the killing.
Hassen had told him on the way back from a court appearance one day that he felt he had not been able to tell the full truth in his formal statement, and asked for paper and pen.
"He insisted he wanted to write the letter because he felt he was misused," Morris said.
Dryden, in the stand, denied a suggestions from Hassen's advocate Jonathan Scott that he had been under pressure for results in the Petersen case.
No bruises
"I had many other cases as well," he said.
Scott, taking repeated breaks to get instructions from his client, told Dryden that Hassen said he was assaulted by detectives when he was arrested.
"I would not know," said Dryden, who said he was not a member of the team that took Hassen into custody.
However, he said that when he supervised Hassen having a shower soon afterwards, he did not notice any bruises on his body.
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