'I was not prepared to disobey God' June 11 2010 at 07:13AMIf he did not kill his aunt as God had instructed him three times, God would destroy Cape Town for all its depravities, rampant crime, homosexuality and drug abuse, as with Sodom and Gomorra, an attorney on trial for murder told the Western Cape High Court yesterday.
Former Legal Aid attorney Siraaj Mohamed, 30, said he loved his aunt Gamieda, 45, just as he loved all his family, but fearing the wrath of God, he had to carry out the divine instruction to kill her, in November 2008.
"I was praying (at around 5am). While I was on my bed God, Allah … commanded me for a third time.
“It was like an overflow of information, some of it made sense and some of it did not. I heard loud noises and music, so intense that my ears were paining. God said: ‘Use an iron to smite her neck’.”
He jumped out of bed, seemingly like an arrow, as if weightless. All around him became blurred, but for a clear path leading to the kitchen drawer where he picked up a handful of knives.
“I cut her neck in the bathroom. I can recall some sort of struggle, but after that I can’t recall everything.”
Mohamed remembered thinking, when his nephew Yushri, 16, hit him with a cricket bat, that it was disrespectful towards him as an older person.
“At that moment, I was not prepared to disobey God.”
He said he had fled to a friend’s house as he tried to resist the first command a week earlier, but he returned on the train and God revisited him, angry that he disobeyed. Then came the third command.
Psychiatrists Sean Kaliski, Marc Roffey and Claudia de Clercq, and clinical psychologist Tania Swart, sat in court to assess whether Mohamed lacked criminal capacity.
Mohamed finished with a repeated warning: “I believe God sent me to warn the people that he’s going to destroy the city. I purchased time from God to offer the people an opportunity to change their ways.”
Mohamed said the relationship with Gamieda had deteriorated. She tried poisoning him three times.
The case continues on June 21.
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=13&art_id=vn20100611044502106C587088