Durban - Three men accused of human trafficking and running a brothel with girls as young as 12 years old will know their fate next month when they are sentenced in the Durban Regional Court.
Sandile Patrick Zweni, 37, Nonduzo Dlamini, 24, and Bhabha Dubazini, 29, who were in March this year found guilty of a host of charges related to the prostitution ring that Zweni operated from a Durban Hotel, are facing a life behind bars.
Prosecutor Yuri Gangai, delivering his closing argument ahead of sentencing on November 21, said that there were no circumstances that that could be considered mitigating.
He rejected any assertion by the three men’s legal team that their crimes were not the worst that could have been committed.
“When it comes to racketeering, human trafficking and rape, all of it is bad,” he said.
Zweni was convicted of 39 charges, Dlamini of 38 charges and Dubazini was convicted of 34 charges.
All three were convicted of racketeering, running a brothel, the sexual exploitation of a minor, living off the earnings of prostitution, human trafficking for sexual purposes and dealing in cocaine. Zweni and Dlamini were also convicted of kidnapping, while Zweni was also convicted of raping a minor and assault.
Zweni was the mastermind behind the prostitution ring that operated for about 10 years from the Inn Town Lodge, owned by Dr Genchen Rugnath and his wife Ravina.
The Rugnaths were also accused of being involved, but Magistrate Simphiwe Hlophe acquitted them, saying that the State’s key witness implicating them was less than honest.
Several girls gave testimony during the trial following the arrest of the five in 2012, where many told the court that they were given drugs for free and once addicted, they were sent out by Zweni and his men to prostitute themselves to pay for their addiction.
Gangai said that even if the girls had gone to Inn Town Lodge voluntarily and taken drugs voluntarily, it did not lessen the crimes committed by the three men.
He referred to the testimony of one of the girls who had bunked school with a friend when she was 12 years old. She and the friend had spent all their money and could not get home and were then befriended by one of the accused.
“She was given drugs and never returned home. After four days she had become addicted to the drugs.”
The girl, who testified in court and whose name is known, but cannot be named because she was a minor at the time of the offence, was then sent out to have sex to pay for her addiction.
“That was her first sexual experience. Accused 1 (Zweni) asked for a better price because she was a virgin. She was a plaything of a highly charged cocaine addict. That is the horror of this case.”
Gangai said the law did not recognise consent when it came to human trafficking. There could be no consent to it.
He said that nothing short of a life sentence would suffice for each of the human trafficking convictions, the racketeering convictions and Zweni’s rape charge.
Gangai pointed out that the only benefit that the drug addicted girls obtained from working for Zweni and his gang was R25 a day for food, free “wake up drugs” to get them on the street and the money they would occasionally steal.
There was, he said, no compelling evidence before the court to deviate from the minimum sentences.
“It must have been a very lucrative business for him (Zweni) to continue to do it for over 10 years,” he said.
He recounted testimony where Zweni had urged a girl to get out onto the streets because he had to support his children.
“The accused was trafficking other people’s children to provide for his own,” he said.
He said the crime was not a one-off, but an ongoing saga of sexual and drug abuse controlled by Zweni and his two men – Dlamini and Dubazini.
“It is tantamount to being raped without ever seeing an end in sight,” he said. “What the accused committed was modern day slavery.”
He call on Magistrate Hlophe to hand down multiple life sentences because their crimes had been calculated and planned.
“They were calculating, manipulating people who would stop at nothing,” he said.
African News Agency