CIVIL rights organisations and political parties are demanding answers on why charges against the 14 people linked to the gruesome rape of eight women in July have been dropped.
On 28 July, the country was left shaking when news broke of a gang rape incident involving eight women who were shooting a music video at an abandoned mine in West Village near Krugersdorp allegedly by illegal miners.
Police made swift arrests days after the incident, and 13 men and a minor were charged of the crimes.
While the public was still hopeful that justice would prevail, on 27 October the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) released a statement saying they had decided to drop the charges against all the suspects due to insufficient evidence.
The news came as a surprise and left more questions than answers.
Initially the NPA had told the public that they had an airtight case against the accused.
On Tuesday, 1 November, the men appeared in the Krugersdorp Magistrates Court for their initial charge of contravening the Immigration Act.
NPA spokeswoman Phindi Mjonodwane told Daily Sun that’s the only charge remaining against the men.
She said the charges of rape, sexual assault and robbery with aggravating circumstances against 13 men and a minor were dropped.
Speaking outside court was ActionSA member Themba Mabunda, who said they came to court to demand answers.
He said they were disappointed with the NPA for dropping the charges.
“The country is experiencing a high rate of gender-based violence and when we see such results, it disappoints us as the community because this is the time where we are supposed to be protecting our women, but our country’s justice system is failing us,” he said.
He said as the party they wanted to know why there was a turnaround when they were told that the accused were linked to the crime through an identity parade and DNA.
“If there is an identity parade it means there is a victim who pointed out the suspects. I don’t know why this has changed. Remember there was a time they told us that the DNA is matching these people but now we don’t know what happened to the DNA,” he said.
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He said the police were not telling them anything and were also hiding things from them.
“As ActionSA we will launch our own private investigation into this matter. We won’t rest until we find out what actually happened,” he said.
Mjonondwane said during the identity parade three of the victims pointed out the men as their attackers but the other five could not identify anyone.
She said they later met with the victims who told them that they had made a mistake during the parade.
She also said the DNA from the men identified by the victims was taken to determine if they could be linked to the rapes, but when the results came, they could not be linked to the rapes.
“We are back to square one and are still investigating, looking for the suspects,” she said.
Police Minister Bheki Cele said the arrests were done after the photo identity parade by the victims.
“When we went back for verification, the victims were very much hesitant. They were not sure as they were initially,” he said.
