Durban - Five months of despair for a Mariannhill couple might be over – their 11-month-old son, who was kidnapped and sold for R5 000, could be reunited with them soon.
On Thursday the couple, who are not being named to protect the identity of the child, came face to face with the people who allegedly organised the kidnapping.
Tazley Msweli, Sbongile Ndimande, Thembi Cele and Catherine and Rajendra Ramlatchman appeared briefly in the Pinetown Magistrate’s Court on charges of kidnapping and child trafficking.
Police spokesman Thulani Zwane said in a statement that the baby was kidnapped in October last year by two women who had posed as social workers and had told the mother to accompany them to Pinetown.
In Pinetown, the women gave the mother money and told her to buy something for the child while they kept him for her.
When she returned from the shop, the women had disappeared with her child.
Zwane said the case had been assigned to the Pinetown family violence, child protection and sexual offences unit, which arrested the five this week.
It is alleged that Msweli and Ndimande had posed as social workers and that the Ramlutchmans had bought the child with the help of Cele.
The baby was found in a flat in the Durban CBD this week.
The couple told The Mercury it had been a “difficult” five months without their child. “I was not coping. I could not sleep or eat. I would just sit and think about whether he was alive. If he was getting fed or not,” said the mother.
The parents said they had seen the baby on Tuesday this week and believed he was their child.
“I was so happy to see him. He has grown up, but he is our son. We just have to be patient and wait for he DNA tests to be done,” the mother said.
The father said he wanted justice.
In court, Msweli, Ndimande and Cele applied for legal aid and the State applied for the case to be adjourned to next week for bail consideration.
Attorney Arvina Haricharan, acting for the Ramlutchmans, opposed the adjournment and asked for her clients to be released on bail as they had co-operated with the police investigation and might consider pleading guilty.
The case was adjourned to March 9.
The Mercury