Johannesburg - When Patrick Wisani, a former ANC Youth League leader, allegedly beat his girlfriend to death, it was allegedly not the first time he had assaulted the young woman.
In September, Nosipho Mandleleni, 24, was found dead at the house that she and Wisani were staying in after being beaten repeatedly with a sjambok and a broomstick. Her body was found by her twin sister Siphokazi, who was living in the same house.
On Monday, Wisani briefly appeared in the high court sitting in Palm Ridge after the case was transferred there from the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court.
Nosipho’s distressed mother, Noxolo, claimed she knew of at least two other occasions when Wisani had assaulted her daughter during their nearly two-year-long relationship.
The first time Noxolo became aware of Wisani’s violent nature was when she found out that Siphokazi had a blue eye and other bruising on her face. She then learnt that Wisani had lashed both her daughters with a chain, apparently because Siphokazi had been defending her sister from Wisani.
Noxolo said Wisani had persuaded her not to lay a charge against him at the time.
“I wanted to open a case, but Patrick said why do you want to open a case? He said 'I will never do it again'. He apologised,” she said.
About a month before Nosipho’s death, Noxolo noticed that her daughter had been badly cut along one of her breasts and on a hand. “(Nosipho) said she fell down, and I believed her because she was honest. Then this thing happened about a month later.”
When Siphokazi phoned her mother on the morning of September 6 to say Nosipho was dead, Noxolo didn’t believe her. “I said voetsek’. I thought maybe she was joking.”
But Noxolo was devastated when, later in the day, she pushed her way through police officers to get into the Yeoville house to see her daughter’s badly cut body for herself.
“I screamed. I cried. It was very, very bad.” Noxolo said they found her daughter’s bloodied clothes and cleaning rags in a bucket, allegedly placed there after Wisani had washed Nosipho’s body and dressed her in clean clothes after the attack.
Nosipho’s violent death has left the family devastated. “I am so stressed. I will never forgive this man. I hope he rots in jail,” said Noxolo.
Her daughters, aged nine and four, used to spend weekends with their older twin sisters and were also not coping with their loss. “Her nine-year-old sister wants to kill herself because of what happened.”
Wisani and his lawyer could not be reached for comment.
A member of the ANC’s Ward 67 Yeoville branch, Khanyisani Vilakazi, attended court proceedings wearing a T-shirt with Wisani’s face printed on it. It bore the words: “Patrick Wisani who brutally raped and murdered Nosipho Mandleleni. He deserves the maximum sentence.”
Vilakazi said Wisani had given the ANC a bad name and was a danger to the community. He encouraged other ANC members to condemn Wisani.
The trial was postponed to August 1 after prosecutor Faghre Mohamed said DNA and cellphone analysis was still outstanding. Bail was extended.