A South African woman has been charged with murder after tracking down and stabbing to death a man she accused of raping her, prompting renewed calls to legalise vigilante action.
The 34-year-old rape victim, who cannot be named, appeared before a magistrate yesterday to be formally charged and was released until a court hearing next month.
She was allegedly accosted and raped by three men between 1am and 5am last Saturday near her home in Orange Grove, in northern Johannesburg.
”After the men left her, she went in search of them and when she later spotted one of the suspects, she confronted him and stabbed him repeatedly,” said Inspector Stephen Marais.
The 20-year-old man died of multiple stab wounds at the scene. Two men who were questioned by police on suspicion of being the dead man’s accomplices have been released without charge.
A police representative said a doctor had examined the woman, who was arrested at her home after a tip-off, and confirmed she had been raped.
The case has re-ignited a debate about to what degree South Africans are entitled to hit back when attacked by violent criminals.
Radio shows have blazed with calls for the woman to be commended for her initiative and some members of the public said she was a role model. Perceptions that criminals act with impunity and that the police are overwhelmed are widespread despite government assurances that violent crime is dropping.
Earlier this year police and legal experts assured citizens that they had the right to kill as long as that was the result of self-defence which used ”reasonable force”.
That formula failed to stem the outcry over several cases which were viewed as excessive force by the police and as justifiable self-defence by commentators and the public.
Police considered charging a 16-year-old boy who beat a man to death with a cricket bat after the family farm near Pretoria was attacked by a gang armed with spades and knives. A couple who repeatedly stabbed an intruder who broke into their caravan and tried to rape the woman may also be charged with murder.
Legal experts said a key criterion in evaluating such killings was the time lag between a criminal’s attack and the response of the intended victim. If the criminal had left the scene or been disabled and the intended victim was no longer in immediate danger there was little chance of claiming self-defence, said one lawyer.
After a group of 18 women workers at a factory in Krugersdorp captured and beat to death an armed robber, three of them, aged between 35 and 47, were charged with murder.
The government claims that the number of murders is dropping and that violent crime has stabilised but has declined to publish detailed statistics.
Interpol said South Africa’s reported 21 683 murders in 2000 was 10 times the per capita rate of the United States.
About 50 000 rapes were reported in South Africa for the year ending March 2002, 12 times the per capita rate in Germany and four times that in the US. Women’s groups claim the real rate is far higher.
Tourist authorities acknowledge that crime is a problem but complain that rapes of tourists in South Africa receive disproportionate international media coverage compared to sexual assaults on foreigners in other holiday destinations. – Guardian Unlimited Â