Beaded penis rapist convicted

File photo

File photo

Published Sep 2, 2015

Share

Pretoria - “He ruined our lives. We will never forgive him and we hope he rots in jail.”

This was the reaction of some of the victims of the so-called Soshanguve serial rapist who, masked with a balaclava in most instances, raped his victims either at knife- or gunpoint, before robbing them.

Sipho Mbokazi vehemently denied throughout his high court trial in Pretoria that he was a rapist and said it was a case of mistaken identity. This was despite DNA evidence linking him to a few of the rapes and some of the victims saying they would never forget his eyes.

In the instances where he did not wear a face mask, his victims identified him by a distinctive scar on his face. But Mbokazi’s “beaded” penis had cost him dearly, as most of the witnesses described their attacker as having a “bumpy penis”.

Mbokazi admitted that he used to wear beads on his private parts, but said he had since removed them.

He told the court it was not an uncommon practice and that there were many other people who did the same.

He was adamant that he was not the rapist identified by the victims, but could not explain the DNA evidence that linked him to the crimes. His advocate instead attacked the chain followed in analysing the DNA collected at the crime scenes.

But Judge Jody Kollapen found that he was the man who embarked on a reign of terror in Soshanguve for a year and a half, starting in August 2012 and ending in April the following year.

He convicted Mbokazi on 22 of the 35 charges against him. These include 10 charges of rape and nine of robbery with aggravating circumstances.

He found that the victims positively identified him by either his eyes, scar or private parts.

The judge said the DNA evidence couldn’t be disputed.

He also rejected the defence’s argument that the doctors who examined the victims, in most cases could not find any injuries on them. He pointed out that according to the medical evidence, in 70 percent of rape cases no injuries were found.

The court was packed with Mbokazi’s victims, and the judge in acquitting him on some of the charges, explained to them that it was not because he did not believe what had happened to them.

He said he had to give Mbokazi the benefit of the doubt in some of the cases where witnesses were not able to identify him at all.

Several of the victims burst out in tears and cried inconsolably as Mbokazi was convicted.

A young mother, who was brutally raped in front of her 6-year-old son, said the child has been terrified ever since. “He does not want to stay with me and he is terrified of the dark.”

The victims all said they were relieved that their rapist had been convicted.

[email protected]

Pretoria News

Related Topics: