Grandmother’s chilling account of home invasion that left her husband dead

3 months ago 14

An 88-year-old woman has described screaming out for help as she watched her dying husband lie helplessly on their living room floor following a violent home invasion allegedly committed by their nephew.

Kalim Saliba was 86 when he was fatally attacked at his house in Sydney’s north while he and his wife, Shahidy, sat in front of their TV.

Shahidy Saliba and her husband, Kalim, who was allegedly murdered during a home invasion.

Tony Phillip Tadrosse and Danny Stephen have pleaded not guilty to murdering Kalim on April 29, 2020, and assaulting Shahidy with an attempt to rob while armed.

The prosecution alleges 60-year-old Tadrosse, who is the Salibas’ nephew, and 35-year-old Stephen, an extended family member, were financially motivated after hearing “within the family circle” that the victims kept large amounts of cash in their home.

Testifying about that night in a NSW Supreme Court trial, Shahidy described turning down the volume on her TV when she heard strange noises upstairs shortly after midnight while her sleeping husband lay next to her.

Through an Arabic interpreter and giving evidence via audiovisual link, Shahidy said she initially thought the sounds came from a possum and she woke her husband up.

After Kalim went outside though their garage door to see what was happening, Shahidy, who was standing at the bottom of the stairs in their loungeroom, saw a man standing at the top of the stairs to their second floor. She could not see his face because it was covered, she said.

Two men are facing trial over Kalim Saliba’s death, charged with murder.

The court heard Shahidy went outside to tell her husband there was someone inside the house. Kalim said he wanted to go inside, but she pulled his shirt to try to stop him, telling him he could not go in alone.

Following her husband of more than 50 years inside, Shahidy said that she heard the intruder say “Where’s your money”, and Kalim respond: “Son of a bitch, do you want my money as well?”

Shahidy said she said to the intruder in Arabic, “Dickhead, why you coming here?”

Noticing the man was holding a bat, Shahidy picked up a broom, but the man took it out of her hand and hit her with it, she told the court, causing her to fall to the floor. The man hit her with the bat several times and she lost consciousness.

After regaining consciousness a short time later, Shahidy said she started screaming out for her husband.

“I wanted him to help me to stand up, because I’ve had surgeries on my knees and I couldn’t get up by myself,” she testified.

“I said ‘Kalim, help me, Kalim, help me’. He did not answer. I did not hear from him, so I was able to go, and I saw that my husband was on the floor. He had blood [it] was everywhere. I was scared. I ran and I started screaming, ‘Help me, help me’. And then the neighbours knew and came and they called the police.”

The couple were taken to hospital, where Kalim died shortly after. Shahidy told the court she needed 40 stitches and injured her shoulder and hips.

During cross-examination by Tadrosse’s defence lawyer, Madeleine Avenell, SC, Shahidy was asked if her walking was “quite slow” in April 2020.

Shahidy responded: “Yes, I’m an old woman. I’m 88. What do you expect? Am I gonna climb up the wall?”

Kalim Saliba was attacked inside his home and later died.

In his opening address on Monday, Crown prosecutor Eric Balodis said the jury will hear evidence that the alleged offenders were struggling financially at the time, and the Salibas ran their family business with “an old-fashioned attitude” of keeping cash inside their house and rarely using online banking.

The Crown’s case was that Tadrosse, Stephen and potentially a third person had “entered into an agreement” to rob the couple of money or other valuables.

“One could see how that might work with a couple that were in bed upstairs in their house… [but] the confrontation occurred downstairs while two of them were coming back from outside,” Balodis told the court, adding the accused men must have “contemplated… that one or more of the occupants might be intentionally killed or intentionally caused serious bodily injury”.

During the defence teams’ opening addresses, Stephen’s barrister Karl Prince said his client did not kill Kalim, injure Shahidy or take part in an agreement as the Crown alleged.

Avenell told the jury that the evidence, when analysed, will suggest they will find her client not guilty, with the relevant CCTV footage and phone records not proving his involvement in the crimes.

The trial before Justice Natalie Adams continues.

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