Haffejee ‘did not kill himself’

THE third day of the inquest into the death of dentist Dr Hoosen Haffejee saw three witnesses take the stand at the Pietermaritzburg High Court to detail why the 26-year-old could not have committed suicide.

First on the stand was Thivash Moodley, an aeronautical engineer who has worked for the past 22 years in mechanical and aeronautical engineering in aerospace defence, in the maritime field and road and rail logistics. Moodley took almost an hour to break down to Judge ZP Nkosi the improbability of Haffejee committing suicide, given the position in which he had been found in his cell.

Using picture evidence and video re-enactment provided to the court, Moodley said that Haffejee’s body was hanging from the lowest bar of a grille door and a mere 400mm from the ground although Haffejee was 1.75m in height.

Moodley said that following a series of mathematical calculations they established whether, from 400mm off the ground, a person could actually suspend themselves until death, or in a case of suffocation, in which the method of suffocation is strangulation, a person could strangle themselves from that position or if there was a third person involved in the strangulation. He said that they had measured the cell door and taken all the relevant dimensions and concluded that Haffejee was a mere 400mm from the ground when his body was found.

He added that yesterday, upon visiting the Brighton Beach Police Station cell in which Haffejee’s lifeless body was found, they could see that there were several other places that he could have been used to also hang or suspend himself, such as the higher parts of the door and the three windows that were available.

“But it was weird that a person would choose the lowest bar of the door which is probably the least likely height that you would be able to strangle yourself from; I mean even the bar higher would give you a lot more suspension when you hang from it.

“In this situation it created the impression that the lowest bar … that’s what gave us also some sort of inclination to believe that if a third person was involved it could be very easy to use the lowest bar, strangle the person, tie (the person) to the lowest bar and then close the door behind them,” Moodley.

Haffejee’s last surviving siblings, his sister Sarah Bibi Lall and brother Ismail Haffejee, also took to the stand to share why they believed that their brother did not commit suicide, and the impact his death had on the family.

Describing the impact that Hoosen’s death had on her family, Sarah said: “I think my mother aged overnight, although she was such a strong person, so strong that she tried to be there for us; she just showed a very brave face but inside it just shattered her.”

She said that the entire family, including both parents, was just never the same after Hoosen’s death, with her father particularly becoming withdrawn despite having previously been outgoing and talkative.

Ismail said that he was devastated to see his brother’s body in such an injured state, with between 50 to 70 injuries which police attributed to Haffejee allegedly resisting arrest, and tried to imagine how much he had suffered while he was being brutalised.

He said that due to how devoted his brother was to his Islamic faith he did not believe that he would make the decision to commit suicide.

“We strongly believe in Islam that life is very sacred, that life comes from Allah and it is only He that takes away life and if we were to take our life prematurely then it is a grave sin, an unforgivable sin for indeed life comes from Allah and life belongs to Him and it is He that takes away life.

“This is a very strong belief, we all believed that, even Hoosen too believed that,” Ismail said.