Warning: explicit language
Johannesburg - “Open those legs! Open those legs widely or I’ll kill you.”
Pinning her down at knife point, he had just ordered her to caress his penis, to “hold it nicely till it gets hard”.
She feared for her life, so she did as she was told.
He then raped her, right there in the bushes, in the darkened secluded area.
That was five years ago.
On Monday, in the Johannesburg High Court sitting in Palm Ridge, for the first time since February 27 2010, Lwazi* got to relate events of the night a stranger she had trusted to take her to the right taxi had reduced her to tears, raping and robbing her of her cellphone and cash.
“He shooshed me to stop crying. He ordered me to take my trousers and panties off. He then kneeled on top of me. I was tense. He took out a knife. I screamed but calmed down and started doing as I was told. He told me to unzip his trousers... and ordered me to caress his penis. He got an erection very quickly and then shouted ‘open your legs... open your legs widely or I’ll kill you’. He then said ‘take this penis and put it in’. He then raped me,” said the woman, who was aged 25 at the time.
Listening from the dock was her alleged rapist, Lawrence Bila Mabunda, who is facing 22 rape counts, 13 of kidnapping, two attempted murder charges, 13 aggravated robbery charges, and a charge of possessing a firearm and ammunition.
Lwazi had arrived at Wanderers Street in Joburg at around 6.45pm to catch a taxi to Warden in the Free State.
Mabunda allegedly emerged from a group of taxi drivers and queue marshals nearby and told her the last taxi had just left. He told her he had been tasked with transporting the remaining passengers to Benrose, where the taxi had gone to pick up other passengers.
Mabunda walked her to the taxi that was to take them to Benrose and they both got in, alighting a few kilometres away.
After Mabunda greeted taxi drivers around, he then walked her to where he said the Warden taxi would be, reassuring her they were close and holding her hand when she complained of the darkness.
“Did you trust him?” asked State Advocate Shubnum Singh.
She had no reason not to, until her phone started ringing repeatedly with calls from her sister and her husband.
“He said the phone was annoying him. I started crying and told my husband I had to go as the person who was helping me was getting annoyed,” she said.
When she dropped the phone, Mabunda changed from the kind man she had met earlier, to a knife-wielding stranger who was now ordering her to undress.
Her story was similar to that of Vuyokazi*, who had also been lured to Benrose after being told she would get a taxi to Rondebult there.
Vuyokazi had no money to pay for a taxi to Benrose, so Mabunda offered to walk her.
“He pointed to a place and said for us to get there faster, we’ll have to go through the bushy area. The footpath was narrow so I walked behind him. The drimac he wore made some noise so I told him he made me nervous as the area we walked through was dense. He then turned around, grabbed me around the chest and took out a knife and said if I didn’t want to die, then he was going to rape me,” said Vuyokazi, who was attacked just nine days after Lwazi.
Sworn to silence or face death, she stripped and was raped at knifepoint and robbed of her valuables.
“He then said I should give him a towel so he can wipe himself. When I said I didn’t have a towel, he took the jacket I was wearing and wiped himself with it,” she said.
Mabunda has pleaded not guilty to all charges, saying he knew only one of the 22 women and that he had had consensual sex with her.
The trial continues.
* Not their real names
Additional reporting by Thando Nxumalo, Noxolo Mdlalose and Bongeziwe Cingo
The Star