A man charged with the kidnapping, attempted murder, indecent assault and rape of a six-year-old girl pleaded not guilty in the Johannesburg High Court on Monday. The girl was raped and disembowelled in the veld near Alexandra in September 2002. She underwent emergency surgery after the incident.
Reuben Modiba (29) from Alexandra, had been ”positively linked” to the crimes through DNA tests.
His advocate, Anton Lerm, informed the court that ”from early in the morning of September 7 2002 till early morning September 8 2002 he [the accused] cannot remember his actions.”
Prosecutor Hein van der Merwe handed up a Sterkfontein Hospital report stating that after 30 days observation, Modiba was found fit to stand trial.
In his opening address, Van der Merwe told the court that a witness would state how she saw the child being carried across a stream by the accused. When the girl was found the day after she went missing, she was rushed to the Johannesburg General hospital where a team of surgeons operated on her.
A blue jacket and a child’s underwear were found at the crime scene. Both were linked to the accused by positive DNA tests, Van der Merwe said. The court also heard that the victim, who turns eight this year, had recovered and if necessary would be called to testify towards the end of the trial.
The child’s mother told the court that she, her husband and ”comrades from the area” searched for the little girl who was eventually found the following afternoon, seriously injured.
In court on Monday, the accused was also pointed out by the victim’s mother as having visited her home on the evening of September 7.
Modiba apparently accompanied the victim’s uncle to their house, but was unknown to the family. They left after discovering that the victim’s father had not returned home from a soccer match.
Modiba apparently returned later that night on the pretext that he wanted to borrow R10 for transport for the uncle, then left when he was told to wait for the girl’s father.
The mother then went outside where her two children were playing and found the child missing. – Sapa