From privileged beginnings to alleged extremist networks, the lives of Rodney and Rachel Saunders’ killers reveal three very different paths to the same brutal crime.

Convicted killers Bibi Fatima Patel (36), her husband, Sayefudeen Aslam Del Vecchio (46), and their Malawian accomplice, Ahmad Jackson Mussa (44), were found guilty of kidnapping, torturing, robbing and murdering British-South African botanists Rodney (74) and Rachel (63) Saunders. They are serving two life sentences each, plus 23 years. Until now, little has been publicly known about the trio behind the murders.

Privileged beginnings
Italian-born Del Vecchio holds dual South African and Italian citizenship. Raised in a wealthy family with connections to MSC Shipping, he matriculated from Northwood School before studying agricultural management. He has two children from his first marriage.

Before converting to Islam, he was known as Thomas. Court documents link Del Vecchio to Farhad Hoomer, brothers Nufael and Yunus Akbar, and Ryan Grobler, all of whom have been linked to alleged ISIS-related activities in South Africa and Mozambique. Hoomer and the Akbar brothers were sanctioned by the United States in 2022 for allegedly financing terrorism and supporting the ISIS-linked insurgency in northern Mozambique, while Grobler is awaiting trial on charges including murder, kidnapping and terrorism linked to an alleged ISIS-aligned “Sharia court”.

One former school friend described their childhood as “idyllic”, recalling days spent exploring the sugarcane fields above Umhlanga, removing alien vegetation and clearing snares. Another former friend described Del Vecchio as secretive and prone to provoking confrontations.

“He was always an extreme, all-or-nothing guy who stirred trouble and pushed buttons for ‘fun’, but the fights often turned serious,” the friend said.

“Looking back, he fits the profile of psychopaths portrayed in true crime documentaries,” the friend said.

The friendship ended after he discovered Del Vecchio had allegedly been catfishing him by posing as a girl he liked.

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The Lioness and the recruit
Del Vecchio and Patel are understood to have met through a social media chat group by 2015. Patel grew up in Azaadville, Gauteng, attended an Islamic madrassah and volunteered with Gift of the Givers. On social media, she called herself ‘The Lioness’. Her father is a Moulana (respected religious leader).

Court papers allege Patel recruited young girls in 2015 to join ISIS in the Middle East as suicide bombers. In July 2016, she and her brother, Ebrahim, were arrested on the same day as the Thulsie twins, Brandon-Lee and Tony-Lee, during co-ordinated Hawks anti-terrorism raids. Ebrahim was charged under the Explosives Act and Patel under the Firearms Control Act.

Mussa, a Malawian national who was in South Africa illegally when arrested in connection with the Saunders case, left school in Grade 7 before learning sewing and bricklaying. He later moved to South Africa, where he met Del Vecchio while working as a cleaner at a Durban mosque.
Mussa told the court, through a Chichewa-language interpreter, that he was immediately drawn to Del Vecchio because he believed he resembled Jesus.