Uber passenger attacks: Arrested pair freed

With Taxify and Zebra competing with Uber for market share the consumer is the big winner, says the writer. File photo: Kai Pfaffenbach

With Taxify and Zebra competing with Uber for market share the consumer is the big winner, says the writer. File photo: Kai Pfaffenbach

Published Sep 13, 2016

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Johannesburg - Two men accused of being involved in attacking Uber taxi passengers have been released as police promise to gather more evidence in the case.

Gauteng police spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Lungelo Dlamini said the case against the pair was temporarily withdrawn on Monday.

“The case against the men has been provisionally withdrawn for further investigation,” he said.

“We are hoping to get more evidence against them and then place the matter back on the court roll.”

Two of the three suspects were arrested last week following several Uber passengers who were assaulted and robbed and the female commuters raped.

This included an incident in July when two men, allegedly hiding in the boot of an Uber vehicle attacked a 64-year-old woman after she ordered the meter taxi service in Fourways, north of Joburg.

According to police investigators, the men assaulted her and took her to a secluded spot, where she was raped and robbed.

In a similar incident last month, a couple travelling in an Uber following a night out at Movida nightclub in Sunninghill, Sandton, were attacked.

Dlamini said at the time that two men hiding in the boot of the vehicle pushed the back seats out, stabbed the man and put his girlfriend in the boot.

The pair were then assaulted further and robbed while the woman was raped.

One of the men who was accused of being involved in both Uber attacks and has since been released, was believed to be the driver of the vehicle and was arrested in Mpumalanga.

His alleged accomplice, a security guard, was arrested in Germiston on Friday while the third suspect is still at large.

In a separate case also involving an attack on Uber passengers, another driver had been arrested following a rape attack on a local musician’s mother.

The man who allegedly assaulted and kidnapped the woman, appeared in the Randburg Magistrate’s Court on Monday where he was granted R1000 bail and the case against him was postponed to next month.

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