'I don't want to remember...'
2008-04-07 23:08
Bloemfontein - Annerette Fourie cannot forget the "absolutely expressionless" face of the man who shot her and her mother.
"I don't want to remember the face any longer," said Annerette of Cape Town in the Free State High Court on Monday.
"I think I was shot first. I think I hid behind my mom. That's why she is dead today.
"I took cover behind her," she testified in tears before Acting Judge MM Mabesele.
Annerette testified that it had felt like a war to her in the kitchen.
Henry Faba, 23, and Ntshegelang Simon Motibi, 29, both of Thaba 'Nchu, have denied they murdered 56-year-old Eugene and 52-year-old Anne-marie Fourie on the night of November 16 2006 on Rietvlei farm near Verkeerdevlei.
They also pleaded not guilty to charges of robbery with aggravating circumstances and that they had tried to murder Annerette.
Heard five shots, screams
Release applications for three of their co-accused, Jeremia Khaile, Christopher Moneri and Mafa Talla, were approved on Monday and they were found not guilty and released.
A sixth accused, Johannes Tshotleho, has died since their last appearance.
Annerette, who had arrived at the farm that day to visit, testified she had been in the kitchen after dinner when she heard five shots and screams outside.
Her mother came into the kitchen and said robbers had shot her father.
She thought they had just been warning shots and followed her mother to the back door.
The next moment, there was a man in the kitchen and they were shot.
"I saw who fired the shots, just before and afterwards.
"I wish I could say it happened quickly, but it felt like an eternity to me.
"There were quite a few shots."
Next, she heard rummaging and voices talking softly in the house.
After a while, she heard footsteps coming back.
"I thought they were coming to make sure we were dead, or to come and kill us.
"I was really scared and didn't know what to expect."
She glimpsed them kicking her mother. "I tried to hold my breath, closed my eyes and hoped they would think I was dead.
"They kicked me, too," she testified, crying, but couldn't see who was doing the kicking.
When help arrived, she was taken by ambulance to a hospital where she was treated for five weeks.
"The first accused (Faba) whom I see today in the court was the one who shot me and my mother."
Trying to block out the horror
In cross-examination by Kenny Pretorius, acting for Faba, she testified that, when the shooting began in the kitchen, her mother called out: "Why are you doing this to us?"
"I am concentrating on forgetting. I'm trying to block out the horror."
After she had regained consciousness, she started shaking every night out of fear that the man would return.
"I think I hoped he wouldn't be here today," she said.