Johannesburg - He allegedly raped her repeatedly overnight. The next day, the policeman wrote his number on a cardboard box tear-off, telling her to call him if she ever got arrested again.
This was the evidence in the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday of a woman whose then 17-year-old niece was allegedly raped last December by Hillbrow police officer Sibongiseni Gununu. He has pleaded not guilty. The aunt of the woman, who is 18 years old, testified at court on Tuesday.
*Irene said *Thuli was visiting her in Hillbrow for the holidays in December when the incident happened. At 6pm on a Friday, Thuli and three cousins were returning from a wedding rehearsal in the area when a police vehicle stopped them and asked them to produce their IDs. Thuli showed them her ID and her cousins produced their passports. The two officers told the niece the ID was fake and arrested her, taking her to Hillbrow police station.
“Her cousins came back to report what happened to me, and we went to the police station to fetch her. I thought it was just a misunderstanding,” she told The Star outside the court.
When Irene and her husband arrived, neither Thuli nor a record of her arrest could be found.
“We waited till after midnight before we went home.”
At 6 the next day, Irene and her husband bumped into Thuli as they were on their way back to the police station.
“She was sobbing and her eyes were red,” Irene told The Star.
In court, Irene recounted what her niece had told her about the events of the night of the incident. She said Thuli was questioned at the station for a short while before being released. She was told to leave with the officers who had brought her in. One of the officers, who was leaving work along with other police, was told to take her home.
“She said when they got to Madison Square, he said he was cold and wanted to go in to fetch his jacket. She insisted on waiting with the security guard, but he said ‘You were left in my custody, if anything happens to you, I’ll have to answer’, and she went up with him.”
In the flat, Thuli saw people sleeping on the floor of the lounge and followed the officer to a room. “Then he closed the door behind him, told her to sit down and said that whatever happens in that room will stay there,” said Irene.
The officer allegedly took and hid Thuli’s clothes and then raped her several times during the night. Irene told The Star that the officer had threatened and intimidated Thuli into silence. “He told her he would kill her and her family if she ever tried to report him,” said Irene.
In court, Irene said Gununu had told Thuli: “I’m a police officer, I know the law, and Hillbrow is a small place.”
In the morning he dropped her off a few blocks from her aunt’s home. When her aunt saw she was distressed, she examined her and found that she had been raped. The suspect does not deny having sex with Thuli but said in a statement he gave previously in court that it was consensual.
His bail of R5 000, which he was awarded last year, was extended until August 23, when the case resumes.
*Not their real names
Cadet News Agency
The Star