Mxit rape suspect threatens suicide
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Durban - A Durban man charged with abducting and raping a 14-year-old girl threatened to commit suicide and claimed he had been raped in Westville Prison.
The 35-year-old, arrested on May 31 for allegedly abducting the girl and keeping her for 13 days at his Queensburgh home, where he lives with his mother, appeared again in the Durban Magistrate’s Court on Friday.
It is alleged he met the girl on Mxit and that the pair had chatted and exchanged photographs of each other for weeks before the alleged abduction.
He also faces an additional charge of rape, after a 16-year-old girl claimed he had also had sex with her when she was 15.
On Friday, after a trial date was set for February 27 - when the State is expected to call five witnesses - the man, who cannot be named until he has pleaded, asked the court if he could address his mother, who was seated in the gallery.
“Mom, if I go back to Westville Prison, I’m going to kill myself tonight,” he said. “I’ve been raped. I’m sorry, mom.”
He also claimed that a police officer in prison had pointed a gun to his head and pretended to pull the trigger.
Addressing the magistrate, he said: “You’ve had enough time to call your witnesses and to set a trial date. I’m tired of being lied to. I’ve been lied to by the court and by those little sluts on Mxit.”
He then asked the magistrate if he could go home to his mother and his dog, but was reminded that this was not possible, because he was denied bail in June. “I’m dead if I go back to Westville,” he said.
“I love you, mom, but I’m going to kill myself tonight.”
Nokuthula Zikhali, spokeswoman for the Department of Correctional Services, said today that the man had not harmed himself. “The offender is fine and he is making no death threats in the prison.”
After the court was adjourned on Friday, the accused refused to return to his holding cell. Two police officers were called to escort him out.
During his bail application on June 11, the accused said he did not know the girl was 14.
She is alleged to have got into his car on May 19 after deciding to run away from home.
“She said she wanted to run away from home, so I said I would pick her up,” he said. “She had her clothes packed and got into my car willingly. She was quite tall, so I thought she was 16 or 17,” he said.
Investigating officer, Captain Roshnee Naidoo, said after the girl was rescued, she made a statement saying the accused had flushed her SIM card down the toilet. She said she was not free to leave his house.
Naidoo said that, after his arrest the first alleged victim – the 16-year-old who had been led to believe that the accused was 28 – registered a charge of rape against him. She had broken up with him in January after discovering his real age.
“After the ordeal with the second victim [the 14-year-old], this girl realised that she was under age during her relationship with the accused,” said Naidoo.
The accused said the teen had been his “girlfriend” for eight months and that they had had consensual sex.
“I didn’t rape her,” he said.
Daily News