Science not truth: alleged child killer

Yonalisa Mali, two, and her cousin Zandile, three, were found dead in a toilet in Diepsloot extension 1. They had been raped and sodomised before being murdered. File picture: Antoine de Ras

Yonalisa Mali, two, and her cousin Zandile, three, were found dead in a toilet in Diepsloot extension 1. They had been raped and sodomised before being murdered. File picture: Antoine de Ras

Published Oct 27, 2014

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Pretoria - The man accused of raping and killing three Diepsloot toddlers is innocent and the DNA tests linking him to the crime were “a lot of guesswork”, the High Court in Pretoria heard on Monday.

“Ja well. This science is not the truth... The science is still going to lead to innocent people going to jail,” Ntokozo Hadebe said when asked why his DNA was on vaginal and anal swabs taken from the children.

Hadebe has denied murdering five-year-old Anelisa Mkhonto in September last year and two-year-old Yonalisa Mali and her cousin Zandile, three, in October last year.

He allegedly kidnapped the girls and took them to his shack in Diepsloot, north of Johannesburg, where he raped, sodomised and suffocated or strangled them. He dumped Anelisa's body in garbage bin and the bodies of the cousins in a public toilet.

The two-year-old Yonalisa was still in nappies at the time of her death.

Hadebe denied ever living in Diepsloot or that the shack where the children were murdered was his. He denied that a suitcase containing the blood of Anelisa and Zandile, and a shoe containing Yonalisa's blood, were found in his shack.

He said two witnesses who testified that they had seen him with two toddlers on the day Yonalisa and Zandile disappeared were lying.

“It's not true. They're telling lies. Maybe they became angry because children died and they told a lie about this.

“Maybe I have bad luck,” he said when asked why, out of all the people in Diepsloot, he had been accused of the crimes.

Judge Nico Coetzee earlier ruled that Hadebe's confession about the rape and murder of the cousins was admissible as evidence against him. In the confession he admitted putting Zandile's body in a suitcase and her younger cousin's body in a bucket before dumping them in a toilet.

On Monday Hadebe said he “had no other choice” than to make the confession. He claimed police assaulted him and told him what to say.

The State asked for Hadebe's conviction on three charges of murder, three of kidnapping, and six of rape.

Coetzee will deliver judgment on Tuesday.

Sapa

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