Xolani Koyana
POLICE could soon make more arrests in the case of a 17-year-old Bredasdorp girl who was gang-raped and murdered.
Anene Booysen was left for dead after being badly mutilated early on Saturday.
Before she died she named one of the men as her ex-boyfriend Jonathan Quinton Davids, 22, who was arrested and appeared in the Bredasdorp Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday charged with rape and murder.
The case was postponed to Tuesday.
“I can tell you that more arrests are imminent,” said police spokesman Frederick Van Wyk.
Bredasdorp resident Pauline Haramse said Booysen had been staying with her brother and sister-in-law who took her in when her mother died a decade ago.
Haramse said Booysen had gone out with friends on Friday. On her way back home she was attacked by a group of men. She had been taken to the Tygerberg Hospital badly injured but succumbed to her injuries a few hours later.
“It is really hard on (my sister-in-law) because she treated Anene like her own child. On Saturday when Anene was in hospital she only wanted to be with her,” Haramse said.
The rape and murder has sparked outrage with the ANC Women’s League “disgusted”.
“The scourge of rape cannot be seen as a women’s issue any longer but rather all South Africans of all creeds need to come together as a nation and take a stand against this vulgar and despicable act of sexual crime,” league spokeswoman Troy Martens said.
Cosatu spokesman Patrick Craven said the union federation was “appalled and disgusted” by the incident
“When a very similar incident occurred in India recently, there was a massive outbreak of protest; it was a big story around the world. We must show the world that South Africans are no less angry at such crimes.”