The body that was exhumed earlier this week in Umlazi, south of Durban, is not that of missing police Constable Frances Rasuge, KwaZulu-Natal police said on Thursday.
”Our pathologist says it is the body of a 60-year-old woman,” police spokesperson Director Bala Naidoo said.
He said an exhumation did take place, but stressed that it had nothing to do with the Rasuge investigation.
Earlier, South African Broadcasting Corporation radio and the Daily News reported that the body that was exhumed on Tuesday night at Zwelethu cemetery, in Umlazi, might be that of Rasuge.
According to reports, samples had been sent for forensic tests.
The reports came as police announced that the trial of William Nkuna, accused of murdering Rasuge, will begin on October 3.
North West police spokesperson Senior Superintendent Pieter du Plessis said Nkuna’s trial date is set from October 3 to 7 at the Mmabatho Circuit Court in Ga-Rankuwa.
”Mr Nkuna appeared in the court today [Thursday] and will remain in custody,” Du Plessis said.
The trial date was set for a second time following a week-long search for Nkuna after he failed to appear on the original trial date last Monday.
Rasuge was last seen alive in the company of Nkuna at a hairdressing salon in Themba. She disappeared about a year ago. — Sapa