Cape Town - A child has told of his escape from the clutches of a man accused of sodomising several boys, the youngest 6 years old.
The boy is alleged to have been kidnapped by Enoch Bothata Lefuthane, 37, who is on trial before Judge Siraj Desai in the Western Cape High Court.
The boy was not raped. Testifying on Tuesday by video link with the assistance of an intermediary, he told how he had been kept under a bed while his alleged kidnapper slept.
Lefuthane has pleaded not guilty to 15 charges relating to incidents that took place between 2005 and 2012.
The counts are four of rape, three of indecent assault, four of abduction, three of attempted murder and one of kidnapping.
The incidents are alleged to have taken place in the Eastern Cape and in Stellenbosch, and relate to five boys who at the time ranged in age from 6 to 10.
According to documents submitted to the court by the State, four of them had been sodomised.
The other boy, the State alleges, was kidnapped in March 2009 in the Eastern Cape.
He testified on Tuesday that they had been at Lefuthane’s home when Lefuthane had locked the door and threatened him with a knife.
Lefuthane had ordered him to lift a bed and had then cut “underneath” the bed and ordered him to get into the hole.
“I felt shocked because he said he would kill me,” the boy said. He had got in as told.
“He (Lefuthane) dropped the bed to its normal position and thereafter he slept,” the child testified.
He had escaped when relatives of his had come looking for him.He had screamed but did not believe they had heard him. He had managed to lift the bed slightly and get out.
Under cross-examination, the boy was questioned about, among other things, why he had accompanied Lefuthane to his home.
Lefuthane’s version was that the boy had asked him for money and that they had gone to his house for this purpose. The boy denied this.
The State alleges that in another of the incidents, also in the Eastern Cape, a 10-year-old boy’s hands had been tied behind his back and he had been raped anally.
“This happened repeatedly during the course of the night,” one of the State’s court documents read.
* Lefuthane’s case is being heard in camera, however Judge Desai has permitted an exemption for the press under certain conditions, among them that the identities of the victims be protected.
Cape Times