Johannesburg - For nine years, Khutso Mailoane terrorised the women and children of Germiston, Boksburg and, the surrounding areas, violating 40 victims in his almost decade-long rape spree.
This week, the high court in Joburg forced him to listen to each of his dozens of crimes, convicting him on 122 charges of rape, kidnapping, robbery and assault.
Acting Judge Simon Radasi’s exhaustive judgment covered each of the dozens of incidents where Mailoane would kidnap his victims, take them to secluded areas, demand their money and valuables and then inevitably rape them.
It was this same modus operandi in each of the cases that eventually led police to arrest the serial rapist last year, after he had attacked various women and children for almost a decade. Showing no mercy to his victims, Mailoane was indiscriminate in his choice of targets.
In one incident he raped a young mother in front of her daughter, threatening to kill the child if she didn't remain quiet during the incident. He did the same to another woman while she was carrying her baby, and in another case raped a woman who was eight months pregnant.
His youngest victim was just 13 years old, taking her to a stretch of veld near the Khutalo Hostel in Germiston, robbing her of R11 and then sexually assaulting her.
In one of his most heinous attacks, he kidnapped a trio of high school pupils at knifepoint, and told them they would have to choose between being raped or killed.
While two of the teenagers begged not to be raped - choosing to die - he sexually assaulted them anyway. Among his 40 victims, forensic specialists were able to link Mailoane to almost all of them, although the 29-year-old continued to insist he had not committed a single crime.
Without an alibi, he was unable to explain how his DNA was detected in so many of the women and minors who had opened rape cases against him. Because of such undeniable evidence presented by State prosecutor Michelle Bayat, Judge Radasi convicted Mailoane on each of the 122 counts that remained.
Khutso Mailoane Picture : Supplied
For hours the judge’s ruling detailed the crimes for Mailoane to hear, but eventually the serial rapist had had enough and he shouted at the judge that he was innocent.
After he refused to sit down, Judge Radasi ordered that the now-convicted rapist be taken down to the cells, and the remainder of his convictions read to the court in his absence.
This week, Mailoane’s lawyer, advocate Selby Nyathi, was able to bring just one witness to testify in his client’s defence. Mailoane’s common-law wife, Mapule Sekete, told the court she did not believe the man she loved could be a serial rapist as “it was not possible for one man to rape so many”.
She claimed that she “satisfied” him and that there would be no reason for him to seek relationships elsewhere.
She told the court that the constable had asked for R50 000 to hand over to forensic specialists to affect the outcome of the DNA testing. Sekete presented a recording from August last year in which a man purporting to be Saaiman had accepted a R10 000 bribe.
However, she was unable to explain to Bayat why she had held on to a recording for months, had not opened up a corruption case against the officer or handed it over to the defence so it could be presented earlier to the court.
Bayat said that Saaiman had denied the claims of accepting a bribe, and had told the court that it was actually Mailoane and his family who had been harassing him telephonically, offering him money to “make the case go away”.
Bayat argued that even if Saaiman had accepted the bribe, as a constable, he would have been unable to alter the testing that took place at SAPS forensic science laboratories.
The sentencing proceedings will continue in October, though Mailoane will face multiple life sentences on each of the 41 rape counts. He will remain in custody.