Johannesburg - A recap of the ghastly allegations and emotional testimonies of the alleged Tembisa serial rapist’s victims formed the bulk of the judgement proceedings in the trial that has lasted over a year.
Joseph Rasempane Mahloma is facing 22 counts of rape and three of sexual assault in an alleged reign of terror which supposedly lasted for three-and-a-half years – from January 2011 until July 2014 in and around the Ekurhuleni township.
DNA evidence will prove critical in determining Mahloma’s guilt or innocence, as it emerged from court on Monday that the alleged assailant was positively linked to his victims through the scientific analysis.
On Monday, Judge Leicester Adams, in handing down his judgement at the high court in Joburg, meticulously recapped some of the testimonies from victims and supporting witnesses, who had detailed the harrowing ordeals which Mahloma had allegedly put them through.
These testimonies included three young women from Tembisa, who were allegedly raped three times each by Mahloma, where the accused allegedly used two of the women as his bed while he supposedly violated the other victim on top of her friends.
Mahloma apparently ejaculated each time he allegedly raped the women, with Judge Adams saying the accused’s DNA linked him to his victims.
The victims’ names, which are known to The Star, will not be published in order to protect their identities.
Mahloma, in the charge sheet before the court, is also alleged to have made some of his victims perform peculiar acts after committing the alleged rapes.
This includes an event in April 2014 in Kaalfontein, Tembisa, where the State alleges that Mahloma – in “defeating or obstructing the administration of justice” – “instructed” a woman to “wash herself in sewage water, take off her clothes which he then threw in the sewage water and she had to walk home naked.
“The accused, when he acted as aforesaid, well knew and intended that his actions would have the following results or consequences: wash away any DNA evidence and whereas, as a result of the actions of the accused, (the woman) washed herself in sewerage water and walked home naked”.
Mahloma’s alleged youngest victims were teenagers aged between 14 and 18, who were allegedly raped by the accused and an unknown accomplice in the early hours of New Year’s Day in 2011.
The teenagers, who were allegedly forced at gunpoint from their home to an open veld, were also allegedly robbed of a school bag and a cellphone.
In another incident, Mahloma is alleged to have “forced” another woman, after allegedly raping her, to wash herself and her clothes inside a standalone toilet and forced the woman to wear the soiled clothes when he walked her to her home.
Mahloma, in addition to the charges of rape, is also facing an additional 82 charges – including 18 for the unlawful possession of a firearm, 17 for kidnapping and 13 for housebreaking with the intent to rob.