Durban - A policeman has testified how a wife claimed her former husband allegedly held her hostage for four days, raping her and burning her with an iron, before she escaped, running naked on the streets.
This emerged during the bail application of a 33-year-old Pakistan national at the Durban Regional Court on Monday.
The man, who cannot be named as his ex-wife has brought a rape charge against him, is also facing kidnapping and attempted murder charges relating to her.
He is further facing fraud charges in excess of half a million rand for buying cellphones with fake cheques. The offences date back to 2008.
In a separate investigation, he is facing a series of offences, including the R6m extortion of a businessman, whom he is alleged to have robbed of R1m in cash, with the remainder extracted in the form of luxury vehicles, fraud of R1.5m and theft of a Range Rover from last year.
Both investigations were combined by prosecutor Yuben Archery for the bail application.
Called to testify about the rape and fraud investigations, Colonel Perumal Subramoney said the accused had a reputation for absconding from the law.
When the trial was first set in 2011, he claimed he had been robbed and lost his fingers. He failed to turn up for his trial and had never lost any fingers.
He was re-arrested last month.
“His former wife claims after she ended their relationship, she was kidnapped and kept in a store room in Durban for four days and raped repeatedly. She said he also burnt her with a clothing iron. When she eventually escaped, she was running naked on the streets,” Subramoney said.
On the day police went to arrest him for buying cellphones with fraudulent cheques, his gardener said he had made his getaway by jumping over the fence.
The man’s date-of-birth on his international driving licence issued in Pakistan and that on his passport did not match.
Colonel Ramdhin Sewlal, testifying on the extortion and fraud charges, said the accused was illegally in the country. He had four different passport numbers, but none was valid.
The accused allegedly extorted money from the complainant in the case by threatening to kill his family in Pakistan, then extracted R1 million in cash and R5 million in the form of luxury motor vehicles.
Advocate Joe Wolmarans, for the accused, said in his opinion there was no way the Department of Home Affairs could comment on a passport issued in Pakistan, and they could have made an error with his date of birth.
The luxury vehicles in question were signed for over a period of time and Wolmarans wondered why the complainant in the extortion case had not reported the matter to the police after the first vehicle was taken.
The bail application will continue later this week.
Daily News