By Thapelo Molefe
The long-awaited inquest into the death of Anele Tembe has been postponed to September after it was scheduled to begin in the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court on Monday.
The inquest was expected to examine the circumstances surrounding Tembe’s death on 11 April 2021 after she fell from the 10th floor of the Pepperclub Hotel in Cape Town while she was with her fiancé, rapper Kiernan “AKA” Forbes. Six witnesses had been expected to testify.
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After deciding not to prosecute anyone in connection with Tembe’s death in 2022, the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) later referred the matter to an inquest following the murder of Forbes in February 2023.
The proceedings are expected to determine whether anyone can be held responsible for Tembe’s death and whether the matter should be referred back to the NPA for a prosecutorial decision.
The postponement means the hearing, which the Tembe family has said it hopes will finally establish what happened, will now only get underway in September.
Ahead of the hearing, renewed attention had focused on text messages that surfaced in the lead-up to the inquest.
One exchange is reportedly between Forbes and a lawyer representing the Tembe family after an earlier incident at the Hilton Hotel in Durban, where Tembe threatened to jump from that building.
Another conversation between Tembe and Forbes reportedly includes messages in which she spoke about attempting to take her own life, warning that if there were a next time, she would “do it for good”.
The Tembe family says the messages raise new questions and wants the NPA to investigate alleged discrepancies between the lawyer’s affidavit and the text messages.
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Ahead of Monday’s proceedings, AKA’s father, Tony Forbes, said his family believed the inquest would provide an opportunity for all the evidence to be presented and tested in court, and put paid to rumours that there was foul play in her death.
“For me, the inquest is part of the process; it’s got to run its course. It is important not just for me, but for us as a family. All along, we’ve been waiting for the inquest to happen, so that the facts are put on the table in a balanced way,” Forbes said.
“We are absolutely convinced that Kiernan did not murder his fiancée. And the information that we’ve had has proven that.”
