Tangeni Amupadhi
Dan Mabote, accused of raping, abducting and then killing seven-year-old Mamokgethi Malebana, may soon get his just reward. But family and friends of Mamokgethi say people who aided her killing, albeit inadvertently, will get off scot-free.
“I blame the people who granted him bail,” says Mamokgethi’s mother, Joyce Malebana. “I want something to be done about them so that it could stop others from making the same mistake.”
Mamokgethi was abducted from school in March last year and murdered. That was a day before she was to testify that Mabote, her neighbour, had raped her.
Mabote has confessed to killing Mamokgethi and burying her body in a shallow grave near the Katlehong station on the East Rand.
Many people attending the murder case in the Johannesburg High Court this week are asking for disciplinary measures to be taken against the magistrate who let Mabote out on R2 000 bail on the initial rape charge.
At the time police asked that Mabote be held in custody because he was a danger to the public. They contended that before the alleged attack on Mamokgethi, Mabote had been accused of raping a four-year-old and a six-year-old.
This week people came from across the length and breadth of Gauteng to attend the trial, which some described as the betrayal of innocence taken to new extremes.
The trial has proceeded uneventfully before Judge Lucy Mailula.
Joyce Malebana, her head covered with a blue shawl, was attentively tracking the testimony of various witnesses, like most in the public gallery.
Most of the people at court are unknown to her – brought together by a death many believed was caused by the ineptitude of the justice system.
Peter Masemola (61) from Kagiso said he merely came to hear this “bizarre case. It is difficult to understand. How does one justify such evil acts?”
Mabote has pleaded not guilty, claiming he suffered an episode known as intermittent explosive disorder. But this line was quashed by psychiatrist Helmut Erlacher, who told the court the craving to release tension through violence is uncontrollable and quick.
In Mabote’s case it could not have happened, he said, as he allegedly induced a younger boy to lure Mamokgethi from school before abducting her. “He had a useful reason, not just to release tension.”
Mabote sat motionless in the dock and consulted his lawyer, Emanuele Crespi, more than once during cross-examination of each state witness.
Many of his relatives were in court to support him, including his mother, younger brother and uncles. They had supported him before the trial as well, witnesses at court said, sending him to an inyanga (traditional healer) in Mpumalanga for cleansing after he escaped from custody last year.
Jacob Mabote, his younger brother, says a lot of enmity has developed between his family and residents of Mosiliki where they lived. He says Dan Mabote’s wife and child have fled the area.
“We are here to get the whole truth and then we can start reconciling with the people,” he says. “If my brother says he did it, then what can I say? This thing has created many problems.”
Joyce Malebana says she has not spoken to the Mabote family. “We have nothing to talk about. They knew where their son was hiding and they did nothing.”
She says, however, that she is heartened by visits and words of condolence from people around South Africa and the world.