A relative of murdered Mitchells Plain mother Gafsa Roberts has revealed how he and his wife got a bad smell from her wheelie bin, not realising it was her decomposing body.
Ismail Mukaddam took the witness stand at the Mitchells Plain Regional Court on Friday, explaining that he and his wife had gone to Gafsa’s Winterhoek Street home in Tafelsig on the night of Sunday, 1 March 2015, after being asked by relatives to go and check up on her.
He said they arrived at the house after 11pm and knocked on the door.
They heard Gafsa’s son, Shakoor Roberts, 27, answering that his mother was safely inside.
“He said, ‘my ma is binne’,” Ismail told the court.
The State is set to prove that Roberts strangled his 61-year-old mother to death and washed her body and then hid it inside their wheelie bin.
SCENE: Body found in this bin
Gafsa’s eldest daughter, Rushana Adams, testified last week that her mother lived in fear of her brother, who was schizophrenic, and slept inside a locked bedroom and kept a knife under her pillow for protection.
She said she had reported her mother missing after Roberts told family that Gafsa had gone away for the weekend to friends in Delft.
Gafsa’s decomposed body was found by a neighbour, who is now deceased, in the dirtbin on Monday, 2 March 2015.
Roberts has pleaded not guilty to the murder.
Mukaddam said after speaking to Roberts through the still closed door and believing that Gafsa was safe at home, he turned to leave and noticed the wheelie bin standing in front of the dining room window.
He wanted to move it to its correct place, and he and his wife caught a foul smell coming from it.
He says they called Gafsa’s now deceased neighbour to help as the bin was heavy, and together they managed to move the bin.
They even opened the large vullisdrom to check what the smell was and saw a pillow but nothing else inside and left.
REACTION: Murder accused Shakoor Roberts
Ismail told the court it was only the next morning when he received a phone call that Gafsa had been found that he realised she’d been in the bin all along.
Another witness, Rokeya Johnson, also took the stand and said she’d last seen Gafsa on the Friday when they’d been watching movies at her (Rokeya’s) house.
She says Gafsa called Rushana to say she is on her way to fetch her grandchild.
She says Gafsa left before 5pm, but went to her own house first to drop a litre of milk and fetch transport money to Hanover Park where Rushana lives.
The trial continues.