End to four-week body wait
She arrived on the Sunday night to find him fighting for his life on the pavement.
A FAMILY has found closure after their son who was allegedly tortured before he was stabbed in the head, was finally laid to rest.
Francois Albertus Toerien (41) died in hospital on 12 June after he went to question the men responsible for assaulting his brother, Cory Cloete, on Sunday.
He was found bleeding on a pavement and with a fatal stab wound to the head, on June 11.
His sister, Catherine van Randen, said Frans died at the Baragwanath Hospital on Monday morning around 4am and was finally put to rest at the Olifantsfontein cemetery after more than three weeks’ delay at the morgue.
She said her brother was almost green from being in the morgue for so long.
Also Read: Mortuary strike upsetting the bereaved
“We finally got the chance to identify his body on July 4, and were given his body to bury, on July 5.”
Van Randen said the entire family made it to the burial even though it was a bit far.
She said the family was still planning to follow up on why the culprits were not in jail already.
Catherine added that the culprits needed to face justice since she believed some of the evidence from the night of the attack had disappeared.
She said medical reports showed her brother’s death was a result of a fatal blow to the head by a sharp object.
Police are still investigating.
Toerien was found lying on a pavement near the Trojan Panel Beaters in Rosettenville after he was said to have been tortured by five unknown men.
Van Randen said she arrived on the Sunday night to find him fighting for his life.
She said the family faced obstacle after obstacle in the attempt to retrieve his body from the state morgue near Baragwanath Hospital.
“Thankfully it’s over,” she said adding that the condition of her brother’s body on the day of his funeral still disappointed her.
This comes after the DAs Gauteng Shadow Health MEC Jack Bloom announced that a 200-body backlog of bodies in Gauteng state mortuaries was the result of an illegal strike by forensic assistants.
He said the strike had resulted in autopsies taking more than seven days instead of a day, which then caused great distress to families and police.
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