‘He pulled my vagina from his pocket’

28/07/2015. Suspect Phuti Malema seen leaving Hammanskraal Mangistrate Court in Moretele after appearing for cutting out the external parts of his girlfriend's vagina. Picture: Bongani Shilubane

28/07/2015. Suspect Phuti Malema seen leaving Hammanskraal Mangistrate Court in Moretele after appearing for cutting out the external parts of his girlfriend's vagina. Picture: Bongani Shilubane

Published Jul 29, 2015

Share

Pretoria - He pulled her genitals from his pocket, held them in front of her, and told her he now had “her nice thing” with him as she watched, stunned. A few minutes later, he returned them to his pocket and went to boil water, telling her he was going to kill her.

On Tuesday Mapula Malemone, 29, who is now wheelchair-bound, told the Pretoria News of her ordeal shortly after the man who had mutilated her – the father of her children – appeared in court for attempting to murder her.

Phuti Malema, 34, has already pleaded guilty to charges of attempted murder. But in the Moretele Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday, he insisted that the knife recovered at the crime scene was not the one used by him. He claimed it had been changed by the police.

Malema, who hails from Hammanskraal, had no lawyer and was representing himself.

Despite having pleaded guilty to attempted murder relating to the attack on his former girlfriend, his focus centred on the knife found at the scene. He said it was not the one he had used to cut out his girlfriend’s private parts.

He appeared in the same court last week where he pleaded guilty to attempted murder.

Court proceedings were adjourned until August 5 when evidence of the first police officers who attended the scene will be heard. Malema remains in custody.

Speaking to the Pretoria News by phone, Malema’s then-girlfriend, Malemone, recalled how she awoke in a pool of blood on the morning of April 20 last year after Malema had mutilated her.

She said the attack happened while she was asleep. Their three children – a boy, 8, and two girls aged 6 and 4 – were asleep next to her.

“I don’t know how or why he did this to me. I just woke up to hear my children and neighbours screaming out loud. I couldn’t even speak or move,” she told the Pretoria News.

“The next thing, he came back and pulled out my vagina from his pocket and told me he now had my ‘nice thing’ with him and then he licked it.

“Thereafter, he put it back in his pocket and went on to boil water, telling me he was going to kill me,” recalled Malemone.

It is unknown what happened to her genitals subsequent to the brutal attack which caused extensive injuries which have left her in a wheelchair.

Malemone said they had not had a fight that night. Neither had Malema mentioned anything about her alleged cheating ways after he went to fetch her and their children from her mother’s house the previous night.

Malemone said: “For as long he can still walk and move on with his life unhindered, I will never ever forgive him for what he did to me.

“I am now stuck in a wheelchair because of him. And to imagine that my children now have to live with having seen their mother like this?

“My children have often asked me where I was hurt, but I cannot give them the details as they are still too young.”

Lieutenant Sarah Lesabane took the stand and testified how members of the community opened the door for her to see where the incident had taken place.

Lesabane said: “I was the first to arrive after the emergency personnel had taken the woman to hospital. I was at another crime scene in the vicinity.

“Upon arriving I saw blood and a knife on the chair and closed the door to wait for the experts to cordon off the scene and collect evidence.

“I then waited outside the house with the children.

“Family members arrived and I transported them back to their home in Lebotlhwane. We were all in shock about what had happened,” she testified.

[email protected]

Pretoria News

Related Topics: