The police’s handling of the murder and rape investigation of Khayelitsha teenager Sinoxolo Mafevuka has been cited as one of the reasons the Western Cape High Court found the two accused not guilty.
The accused, Xolisa and Athabile Mafilika, who are cousins of Mafevuka’s boyfriend, walked free on Monday after the court found that the State failed to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt.
Judge Taswell Papier, in his judgment, was critical about the way police handled the matter.
The initial investigating officer Cornelius van Niekerk did not have the notes of the interview he had conducted with the two upon their apprehension.
He had also not informed them of their rights. He was later removed from the case and a new officer assigned.
Judge Papier said there was no direct evidence linking the two to the crimes.
Mafevuka’s near-naked body was found last March by residents.
The last time her family saw her was when she had gone to use the toilet.
Her lower back was facing the toilet door, while her face was under the toilet seat, with her clothes scattered in the toilet and some stuffed in a cistern.
“We think that the judge made a good call in the sense that the evidence required to convict two young men wasn’t there.
“The judge was at pains to make the point that he has to treat everyone equally before the law and the evidence put in front of him was contradictory (and) in other instances there were gaps.
“There was also no sense of what time Mafevuka might have passed away,” said SJC co-head of programmes Dalli Weyers.
“It’s been 20 months since Mafevuka was murdered. A lot of what the judge was saying and the problem he had with the evidence put in front of him seemed to have been the evidence collected by the first investigating officer assigned to the case.
“After media scrutiny and comparing the causes of that of the young woman who was killed in the Tokai forest at the same time as Mafevuka, the police started responding.”
The accused were arrested days after the Cape Times reported about the snail’s pace at which the police’s investigation had been conducted, compared to that of 16-year-old Franziska Blöchliger, who was killed in Tokai Forest nearly a week after Sinoxolo’s murder.
Police acted swiftly and offered the grieving family counselling.
Yesterday, police spokesperson Andre Traut could not explain why Van Niekerk was removed only saying: “Kindly be advised that the Western Cape police is disappointed with the outcome of the court proceedings, however we have no other option (but) to accept and respect the judgment.”
He said they were still in the process of studying the judgment.