A familiar face: Alison Botha spoke out publicly about her attack and wrote a book about it. But her newly freed attackers won't be as easily recognised in public.
The parole conditions of Alison Botha’s rapists Frans du Toit and Theuns Kruger have not been communicated to her, despite them having been released on parole.
She was also not informed beforehand that Kruger would be granted parole, despite her lawyer having checked with the correctional services department.
The department said it will take time to inform Botha of the parole conditions because it wants to prevent the details reaching “third parties”. It did not detail who these third parties are.
Botha was raped, repeatedly stabbed and had her throat slit by Du Toit and Kruger on 18 December 1994. She survived the horrific attack and her witness testimony led to the two men being sentenced to life imprisonment in August 1995.
After serving 28 years in prison, Kruger and Du Toit were released on parole on 4 July and admitted into the system of community corrections “whereby they are expected to comply with a specific set of parole conditions and will be subjected to supervision for the rest of their natural life”, the department said in a statement last week.
The department advised Botha in an email on 23 June that Du Toit would be placed on day parole after Justice Minister Ronald Lamola signed it off. The notice said Du Toit’s day parole — which means he has to return to the prison at night — would continue for three months, after which he would be placed on normal parole.
Prior to the release of the department’s statement, Botha’s legal representative, Tania Koen, had contacted the correctional services department for information on whether Kruger was also on parole.
“I was told, ‘No, this person did not get parole, he is not going to be released’, [only] to read on the same day the press release that says he has been granted parole,” a frustrated Koen told the Mail & Guardian.
“We do not know what the [parole] conditions are.”
Botha submitted a written representation to the National Council for Correctional Services in August 2017 opposing parole for Kruger. In August 2020, she similarly opposed parole for Du Toit. The department did not consult or communicate with Botha from 2020 to June this year, said Koen.
“It is absolutely unacceptable and shocking. It is second victimisation,” Koen said, adding that she and her client “simply have no idea” what the conditions were and that “any normal person will be upset”.
The department’s spokesperson, Singabakho Nxumalo, told the M&G: “The parole placement decision was affirmed and communicated. That is what we are prepared to say at this stage.
“We don’t issue those [parole conditions] out and [it] will take time. Sometimes you’ll find that when the victim is furnished with those conditions, there is nothing preventing them from distributing those conditions to third parties, then it defeats the purpose,” he said.
Although Kruger and Du Toit were out on bail in relation to earlier rape and sexual assault charges when they committed the violent attack on Botha in 1994, they benefit from the amended Correctional Services Act.
According to the amended Act, all offenders sentenced to life imprisonment from 1 August 1993 to 30 September 2004 must be considered for parole after serving a minimum imprisonment of 12 years and four months, regardless of the nature of their offences.
Both Du Toit and Kruger are said to hold “further profiles”, meaning they were considered for parole on multiple occasions. Nxumalo said the severity of their crimes was reflected in the fact that they will not be freed after two years of serving parole, but will instead be monitored until they die.
Du Toit and Kruger were found guilty of raping Botha, stabbing her more than 30 times and trying to slit her throat 16 times. During sentencing in the Port Elizabeth high court, Judge Chris Jansen referred to the two men as “inherently evil’’ and sentenced them to life in prison, recommending they never be granted parole.
The argument that the two should not be released on parole was reiterated this week by Tiaan Eilerd, the man who found the severely injured Botha lying in the middle of the road after the attack.
Eilerd believes Kruger and Du Toit have not shown any remorse for their brutal actions. Speaking to the M&G, he recalled an incident between Botha and Du Toit that took place a few years ago.
Du Toit, who served time at the Grootvlei Prison near Bloemfontein, gained access to a letter Botha had written to the department in which she raised concerns that he might have access to social media and an active Facebook profile.
Her concerns arose after she received a message from a woman in the United States claiming her daughter was on her way to South Africa to get married to Du Toit.
When Du Toit learned about the letter, he said Botha should remunerate them because, if it wasn’t for their attack, Botha would not have been able to write her book.
The department did not respond to the M&G’s questions about the possibility that Du Toit had access to social media.
Eilerd said he was bewildered about the men’s release on 4 July.
“The prison system is supposed to keep violent predators out of society, but they are releasing them back. It is very upsetting. It makes me angry.”
Eilerd, now a doctor in Gauteng, was the first person to see Botha’s near-fatal injuries. Twenty years old at the time, he and his friends were travelling to The Willows caravan park in Gqeberha on the night of 18 December 1994.
“She was lying on her back, almost gasping and gurgling through her throat, she had a hand on her stomach with a denim shirt or something to keep her intestines in.”
He managed to communicate with Botha through hand signals while they waited for the ambulance. Eilerd was able to gather crucial information about Botha’s attackers and give it to the police that same night.
He talked to detective Melvin Humpel, whose name became synonymous with the court case that followed. Eilerd said Humpel “almost immediately knew who it was” and Kruger and Du Toit were arrested the next day.
Although “life goes on”, said Eilerd, almost three decades later he and Botha, who became friends, are reminded of when Kruger and Du Toit were standing trial in 1995.
“It is difficult for both of us,” said Eilerd, adding that he believes Kruger and Du Toit cannot be rehabilitated. Their whereabouts on parole will not be known “every second” and that “is a problem”, he said.
“Putting them back into society is not right, the judge said they had no remorse about what they did. They cannot go back into society.”