My sweet girl's fear
Siam's mom recoils at sight of accused's hands
THE sight of Siam Lee's al-leged killer's hands shook Siam's mother to the core as she sat behind him in the Durban Magistrate's Court yes-terday. "My biggest pain is thinking what she must have felt. The fear. My baby My sweet girl. The mental anguish of absolute fear Is the most painful to comprehend," said Car-men Lee in an exclusive interview with The Independent on Saturday after the court hearing The hardest part for her was see-ing the hands that allegedly "hurt my daughter". . Carmen Lee was speaking after :the accused's brief appearance. dtus Mg which she sat in the front row of the gallery with friends. including Sue Foster, who has been at her side 'since Siam went missing. Siam's body was found, burnt. in a sugar cane field on a farm near New Hanover in mid-January after she had last been seen at a house. believed to operate as a brothel, in upmarket Durban North. It is claimed that mother and daughter worked there. Private investigator Brad Na- .
well-dressed, strongly rounds and someone “That the man that body rejected else. story who Siam found well-spoken is stood rumours cruel,” may could apprehended in not he the be doing be 29-yearold said. that dock, dead the the of "One doesn't want to give people hope when there is no hope" The body has been identified as Siam Lee's by a family member, but Is still In the possession of police pending the results of DNA testing. Carmen said she accepted that her daughter was dead and "in heaven". "But I still feel her presence. Every morning," she said. As the accused man - who can-not be named by order of the court - went back down into the cells af-ter magistrate Mohammed Metals remanded him to February 9, Can lips could been seen moving as she said a prayer Foster followed with an "Amen" After the hearing. Carmen es-caped the press and later stood at a doorway in a corridor to greet and embrace those who come to support her. While doing so she remarked "that's his mother" as members of the accused family walked past. "Justice will he done," she mut-tered. throwing her fist in the air. Amandla' it. Viva!" During the hearing, the man in the dock asked to make a request. He then spoke of how his family had been insulted and harassed had when the said scars “I “They Durban punched he been all they have he feared over suffocated added, visited insulted North suffered me his for body. and his him police claiming and me immense life. held in station the with harassed guns he cells plastic, had and torture,” at me. I've suffered enough and I would ike to move to Westville (prison) so 1 can at least sleep a little better. "I've been sleeping without a mattress for two weeks." Outside court, Foster scoffed at his request: 'How can an alleged killer stand in court and say he hopes for a mattress and yet he is the same man who allegedly killed Siam?' The man in the dock also said he believed his case was being sabo-taged and that he was ordered to change from the clothes he was wearing when he was arrested because they had been torn off him from his having been dragged around. "They made me change to hide the damage." He said he had also been told to "either confess to something I don't know or end up In a body bag". The State said it was often diffi-cult and time-consuming to access detainees at Westville Prison during investigations. but the magistrate ruled that "the State authorities must act within the ambit of the law and respect your (the accused's) constitutional rights".
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Among those in the gallery were the accused’s family and a group of women from the DA, including the party’s spokesperson for women’s affairs in Parliament, Denise Robinson, who flew up from Cape Town, and the party’s deputy leader in Durban, Nicole Graham.
“I came all the way up to show my support,” said Robinson.
Outside court, two women – Tracey Kyriakides and Louise Minnie – called for all people accused of murder to be denied bail.