Johannesburg - “Today I am going to make you my girlfriend.” This is what a 45-year-old Linden police station officer is alleged to have told a female suspect before reportedly raping her in the cells.
It was only when the suspected rapist changed shifts a few hours later that the woman spoke out. She was immediately taken to a doctor, and the officer was arrested and detained at the same police station.
The Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid) is investigating the matter. Ipid spokeswoman Grace Langa said the 25-year-old woman was arrested for fraud on Saturday. She was detained alone in a cell by the officer accused of raping her.
Allegations are that other officers arrested the woman and took her to the station. She was charged and handed over to the officer alleged to have raped her.
The alleged rapist was said to have been working in the cells at the time and was responsible for allocating cells to suspects who had just arrived.
Langa said it was alleged that at about 2am, the officer went to the woman’s cell and said: “Today I am going to make you my girlfriend”, and raped her.
A few hours later, when a handover was being done, another officer came with the suspect and did an inspection at the cells.
“She asked to see that other officer and told him she had been raped. She was quickly escorted to the clinic for medication and to open a case of rape,” Langa said.
The woman has since been taken to another police station.
The officer appeared at the Randburg Magistrate’s Court on a charge of rape on Tuesday and applied for bail but failed, Langa said. “He was remanded in custody for a formal bail application on July 7.”
Other incidents of rape involving police officers have surfaced recently.
Last Thursday, a former Vosloorus police station officer, Constable Lungile Israel Majola, and his accomplices were sentenced to 33 years each for rape, kidnapping and robbery with aggravated circumstances, among other crimes.
In January last year, Mokolo Molekoa, a former constable at Randburg police station, was sentenced to 284 years plus five life terms for 16 rapes committed between March 2011 and June 2012.
The Star