The father of the man accused of Anzunette du Plessis’s murder said he did not send his son to check on repairs done at her house.
|||Cape Town - The father of the man accused of murdering Claremont mother Anzunette du Plessis did not send his son to check on repair work done to the roof of the Buchanan Street home, the Western Cape High Court has heard.
But Moegamat Armien Salie may have heard his father talk about possible leaks the night before the murder.
Faried Salie of Mitchells Plain told the court on Tuesday: “It was raining heavily that evening. I told my family I hope that the roof doesn’t leak again. My son was busy in the yard so he (may have) heard it.”.
Faried Salie was called as a witness by the defence. It has now closed its case.
Faried Salie told the court that he owned a maintenance business, Faried Salie & Sons, and had renovated an en suite bathroom at Du Plessis’s home in March last year.
Du Plessis, her fiancé and their daughter had moved into the house as tenants a month later.
In September, the landlady contacted Faried Salie to do repair work on the roof.
By this time, Du Plessis had set up her home office; she worked as a specialist medical recruiter.
Salie has admitted that he stabbed Du Plessis to death that day. The State claimed he went to the house pretending to check on leaks to the roof that he and his father had worked on two weeks earlier.
Faried Salie confirmed that he and his son went to the house in September, but testified that only he had worked on the roof and that his son had assisted him by passing tools and equipment to him from below.
“He doesn’t do waterproofing. I do,” said Faried Salie.
Moegamat Salie also told the court earlier that Du Plessis had owed him money for repair work he had done to door locks inside the house.
His father said he was neither aware of locks that needed to be repaired nor that his son had fixed them at Du Plessis’s request.
But Faried Salie said it was “a common thing” for people to ask workers to do odd jobs around the house while they were contracted to do other work.
Faried Salie said he had no knowledge of what happened that day and had not seen his son that day either.
State advocate Evadne Kortje and defence advocate Ken Klopper are expected to deliver closing arguments on Thursday.
jade.otto@inl.co.za
Cape Argus