Special Hearings — Trojan Horse Hearings — 1997-06-02

GLENDA WILDSCHUT: Mrs Abrahams, you've given us a very good account, excellent account of what had happened on that day to you and your sons. I just want to ask one or two, a few questions around, trying to clarify, so we have a picture in our minds of what had happened from your side.
 The dalvies you referred to, in the beginning of your statement, that is the shop, is that a shop stoep?

MS ABRAHAMS: This is a shop close to masiet. They had to go past that to go to the masiet to go to the hospital, to the mosque. So before the shooting there was a casper parked there. The road was clear and I was able to take my children to the muslim school.

GLENDA WILDSCHUT: ... was parked on the stoep of the shop, right on the stoep of the shop?

MS ABRAHAMS: On the pavement, right on the pavement.

GLENDA WILDSCHUT: On the pavement, and this was a police casper, a yellow casper?

MS ABRAHAMS: Grey and green.

GLENDA WILDSCHUT: Grey and green, okay. So it wasn't a yellow police casper, it was a grey one? okay and this casper was parked on, right in front of the shop. Yes? Okay. You referred to a granny in the house, you're referring to Mrs Ryklief's mother?

MS ABRAHAMS: Yes.

GLENDA WILDSCHUT: What happened to her? Was she injured in the house when the shooting happened? What happened to her?

MS ABRAHAMS: I don't know.

GLENDA WILDSCHUT: She wasn't hurt at all? But when the police entered Mrs Ryklief's house, the granny was inside the house?

MS ABRAHAMS: She was screaming - don't take Ismail - that is what she was screaming, but she quietened me down because I was really going on. The way in which  he was standing there with the machine gun, facing me and my two children, I was convinced that he was going to kill all of us. And as I've also said, the policeman who was then standing next to Mrs Ryklief, he came closer and said - Mammie mustn't panic - and that he was going to phone the ambulance.

GLENDA WILDSCHUT: The policeman that you were talking about, was wearing a blue shirt?

MS ABRAHAMS: Yes.

GLENDA WILDSCHUT: This was not an ambulance driver?

MS ABRAHAMS: No, I saw him face to face, I can remember him. The way, as I was screaming, he looked at me with my two children in my arms. He could see clearly how that fat policeman was standing with the machine gun facing us and, pointed at us.

GLENDA WILDSCHUT: ... had the gun, that was aimed at you and your two sons. So you were holding  your two sons in your arms? Yes? And you were lying on the bed, holding your two sons. And they had been shot already and they were bleeding? Right. And then there were two policemen who was speaking to you, the one with the gun.

MS ABRAHAMS: No, the one with the gun didn't speak to me at all. He was too cruel. I was very scared of him. The one that spoke to me, that saw me panicking, he came closer to me and he said to me - Don't panic - he will phone the ambulance.

GLENDA WILDSCHUT: So the policeman with the blue shirt was trying to calm you down?

MS ABRAHAMS: Calm me down, yes.

GLENDA WILDSCHUT: And he was reassuring you that they were going to phone the ambulance? Right. Because they had tried to pull out the phone, isn't it? They tried to disconnect it.

MS ABRAHAMS: No one could get through, then he went to the phone and he managed to get through.

GLENDA WILDSCHUT: ... get through to the phone. How soon after he called the ambulance, did the ambulance men arrive? How soon after they called?

MS ABRAHAMS: I can't remember.

GLENDA WILDSCHUT: Could it have been that they had to take time to come from the ambulance station, which is in Pinelands, and drive to your house, or did they arrive very soon after the phone call?

MS ABRAHAMS: We still had to lie there in the house for a while, so they did not come all that quickly. We were still lying in the house. I remember that the ambulance people had navy blue tops and jerseys. I could see in the way in which they picked up Shaun, the fat one that said - you pig, you're dead - I could see how the ambulance men pushed him aside and said to him " Look,this child is already dead. And that's when he grabbed him. The ambulance men put him on the stretcher.

GLENDA WILDSCHUT: When the policemen entered the house, it was still a while before the ambulance people arrived, so they were there in the house all the time until the ambulance people arrived?

MS ABRAHAMS: Yes.

GLENDA WILDSCHUT: .... ask some questions around Ashraf's injuries. You mentioned that he was shot. It seems like in the chest?

MS ABRAHAMS: Under his heart, in his wrist. But an inch from the heart and an inch from the wrist, close to his lungs. I think there is still evidence of this on his body. And as I've also said, the last operation was for the long scar in his behind. But that was a couple of years after the shooting. Shortly, two years after the  shooting, when the case went to the Supreme Court. Until today I don't know who said that they must do that operation.

GLENDA WILDSCHUT: .... I think that we should explore that a little bit.

MS ABRAHAMS: I would like to know what happened to that bullet. They said that there was only buckshot.

GLENDA WILDSCHUT: What I'm trying to work out is, you're saying that as a result of this injury, as a result of this event, your son is not, couldn't do well at school at all. Can you just tell us, was he slow in learning or what was happening.

MS ABRAHAMS: He said every year in the class, when he was shot he was in Sub A. And every year he had to sit in the class. He had to be in the class, so then  he thought, no, he's too old now to be in the primary school. We tried to get him into Batavia and  there was a clinic in Bonteheuwel, which I can't remember, and they tested him, they gave him therapy and so on.

GLENDA WILDSCHUT: At the time that he was shot, at that time he was in Sub A. Had he already spent a year in Sub A or was that his first year in Sub A?

MS ABRAHAMS: That was his first year in Sub A.

GLENDA WILDSCHUT: ... to spend a year in the same, one standard every time.

MS ABRAHAMS: Yes.

GLENDA WILDSCHUT: And he had being going .......or he had just been tested at a special school in Bonteheuwel.

MS ABRAHAMS: No, Batavia. The principal then said to me, that there's a time when you have to be able to write and so on, then he doesn't want to go to school.

GLENDA WILDSCHUT: How does he feel now about what happened, Ashraf? Does he talk to you about that?

MS ABRAHAMS: My son will be able to talk about that. He's not the child that he was, he's like someone who's not normal.

GLENDA WILDSCHUT: ..... as a mother, you feel that, up to six years old, when he was with you all the time, you felt that he was a normal child. He was okay, but since the event you feel that he isn't the same child as he was before the event.

MS ABRAHAMS: One can easily cheat him, he's a slow person. And the way he is today, the way life is today, you have to take care of a child like that. Anyone can tell him to do something and he will do it.

GLENDA WILDSCHUT: I think we should find out whether the others want to ask you before we go on to Toyer.

CHAIRPERSON: Dr Ramashala was actually going to suggest that maybe you continue. Thanks

GLENDA WILDSCHUT: The Chair suggests I go on to you, Toyer. Would you like to speak in Afrikaans as well? Okay.

CHAIRPERSON: Could you help bring the microphone closer to where he is please? Thank you.

GLENDA WILDSCHUT: Toyer, do you need the earphones or do you understand me? You're fine? Alright.
 Perhaps you can tell us from your perspective how you see what had happened that day and give us your side of the story.