Court allows confession of Shahiel’s aunt
Accused tells how boy died
LITTLE Shahiel Sewpujun had just got out of the bath preparing to get ready for school when relatives allegedly pounced, intent on murdering him.
Rajwanthie Haripersadh and her daughter Kavitha Naicker allegedly hit the 9-year-old on the head with a chisel and suffocated him with kitchen gloves, then taped his mouth and nose closed.
They are charged with his murder and appeared in the Durban High Court yesterday.
Haripersadh is Shahiel’s mother’s aunt, and Shahiel and his mother lived in the same household.
These details of the day when Shahiel, a Grade 4 pupil at Clayhaven Primary School was murdered, are contained in a confession made by Haripersadh to the police a few days after his body was found in a stormwater drain.
The confession has been the centre of a trial within a trial. Haripersadh wanted her statement ruled inadmissible as it had been made under threat of physical assault by officers at the Phoenix SAPS.
Haripersadh claimed she had not talked at length to the officers and did not know what they had written, nor had they read it back to her before making her sign it.
After lengthy legal argument, Durban High Court judge Dhaya Pillay yesterday ruled the confession could be admitted into court records.
In the confession, Haripersadh said: “On or about the last week of January 2015, I was at home with my daughter Kavitha Naicker. We got into a conversation and began discussing my niece’s child, Shahil Sewpejaw (sic).
“Shahil lived with us. The discussions involved Shahil’s behaviour. We complained that Shahil was naughty and that he did not listen to us. I suggested to my daughter Kavitha that we should hit him with a chisel and then we should tape his mouth and suffocate him. Once he was dead, we would put him in a bag and throw him in a gutter near our house.”
She said the plan was delayed for a few days as Sewpujun’s mother and stepfather had been home.
“On Thursday, February 5, 2015, we decided to carry out our plan. At or around 7am, Shahil came out of the bath wrapped in a towel. Kavitha had yellow gloves on and a chisel in her hand.
“She hit Shahil on his head with the chisel and he fell down on to the blue sleeper couch. Kavitha sat on him and tried to suffocate him with the gloves around his mouth, while I stood by and watched.
“Kavitha called me to bring some cellophane tape. I then went to the lounge, fetched the tape and went to Kavitha. Kavitha held his head down, while I tied the tape around his mouth and nose. She continued to hold him down until he stopped breathing.
“Kavitha then took off the child’s clothes and we put him in a black bin packet. We then put him in a black suitcase and thereafter in a Tweety bag,” she said.
The two left the bag with the body under a tree at Charclay road. After that, they went to buy bread, had lunch at home and went to sleep.
“At around 9.30pm Kavitha pulled the bag towards the manhole. Kavitha opened the bag, took out the child and pushed him into the manhole while I kept watch.”
The trial continues.