CAPE TOWN - A police witness has told the inquest into the death of Anele Tembe that her fiancé, rapper Kiernan “AKA” Forbes, did not appear visibly distressed after she fell from the 10th floor of a Cape Town hotel.
Tembe (22) died in April 2021 after falling from the Pepper Club Hotel in Cape Town, where she had been staying with Forbes.
The circumstances surrounding her death are being examined during an inquest at the Cape Town Magistrates’ Court. Six witnesses are expected to testify on Monday. The court has ruled that none of the witnesses can be named.
‘He looked quite fine’
The second witness, a Cape Town police officer who deals with unnatural deaths and was among the first officers to arrive at the scene, told the court that Forbes said he and Tembe had been involved in a verbal altercation earlier that morning.
According to the witness, Forbes told police that Tembe had threatened to jump from the balcony.
He also told police that he believed Tembe would not actually jump.
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The warrant officer said Forbes appeared composed when police arrived.
“Mr Forbes looked fine,” the witness told the court, adding that officers could smell alcohol on him.
The witness was asked about Forbes’s emotional state after Tembe’s death.
“What was the late Mr Forbes’s mood like, did he cry?” the Tembe family’s lawyer asked.
“He didn’t look sad, to be honest; he looked quite fine,” the witness replied.
He cautioned, however, that people respond differently to the death of someone close to them.
“I’ve dealt with a lot of cases, some people will cry, others will be quiet,” he said. “Mr Forbes was quite fine, but people react differently to loss of a loved one.”
Inside the hotel room
The witness also described the condition of the hotel room where Forbes and Tembe had been staying.
He told the court that the room was dirty and that “stuff” was lying around.
There was a bloodstain on the bed, while a champagne bottle was found on a chair, the witness said.
“The whole room was very disorganised; it was a mess,” he testified.
What Forbes told police
The witness said Forbes told him that he and Tembe had argued on the morning of the incident and that Tembe had threatened to jump from the balcony.
When the Tembe family’s lawyer asked whether Forbes had told police that he tried to convince Tembe not to jump, the witness said he did not mention anything of that nature.
The testimony forms part of the inquest’s examination of the circumstances surrounding Tembe’s death.
Read more: Tony Forbes: Anele Tembe inquest will put the facts on the table