Who and what is AfriForum?

AfriForum is an Afrikaans civil rights organisation that protects the rights of minority groups at national as well as provincial level, and anyone who can identify with AfriForum’s principles and objectives may join the organisation. AfriForum’s community plan focuses on mobilising communities to thus take control of their own streets and neighbourhoods again. AfriForum ensures that your constitutional and civil rights are recognised and protected at national level.

Wie en wat is AfriForum?

AfriForum is ’n Afrikaanse burgerregteorganisasie wat die regte van minderheidsgroepe op sowel nasionale as provinsiale vlak beskerm, en enigiemand wat met AfriForum se beginsels en doelstellings kan identifiseer, mag by die organisasie aansluit. AfriForum se gemeenskapsplan fokus daarop om gemeenskappe te mobiliseer om só weer beheer terug te neem oor hul eie strate en woonbuurtes. AfriForum verseker dat jou grondwetlike én burgerregte op nasionale vlak erken en beskerm word.

Media statements | Private prosecution Media statements

Adv. Gerrie Nel cross-examines fire expert in inquest of deaths of Deedat family members in house fire

ByAfriForum 12/02/202102/09/2021

Adv. Gerrie Nel, head of AfriForum’s Private Prosecution Unit, cross-examined a fire expert on 10 and 11 February 2021 in the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court about the deaths of Suraya Deedat and her four children in a house fire in 2011. The fire expert was appointed by the legal team of the person of interest in the inquest, Naeem Deedat. Deedat was Suraya’s husband and also the only person who survived the fire.

Gary Kemp of Phoenix Fire Investigation was appointed by Naeem’s legal team to deliver criticism on the fire reports that were compiled by AfriForum’s fire expert (Danny Joubert) as well as the original fire report by the South African Fire Brigade Service. During cross-examination Kemp admitted that he couldn’t dispute Joubert’s report regarding where the bed stood in relation to the heater. Kemp also had to admit that the door between the room (where Suraya and her children’s bodies were found) and the bathroom (where Naeem stood under the shower to protect himself from the flames) had to at least have been closed at one stage. He also had to admit that he has never had a fire investigation in which five bodies were found on their backs in a burnt-down house, and also that it was possible that somebody could have carried their bodies and left them in that position.

For almost a decade nobody had been held accountable for the deaths of Suraya and her children, and the formal inquest gives interested parties the opportunity to test evidence and to help the magistrate come to a conclusion about who and/or what was responsible for their deaths.

“AfriForum’s Private Prosecution Unit hopes that the inquest will lead to justice for Suraya’s family and that the court will order the National Prosecuting Authority to prosecute. It is important for AfriForum to get involved in cases such as this one, because justice needs to be served for the family that has waited so long for answers about what happened that night,” says Andrew Leask, Head Investigator at AfriForum’s Private Prosecution Unit.

The inquest will continue on 15 and 16 February when Naeem’s legal team will call an expert from the Council for Scientific and Industrial research (CSIR) to testify.