Violence erupted outside the Protea Magistrate’s Court in Soweto when hundreds of pupils threw stones at police transporting five men accused of murdering 14-year-old Thato Radebe to the Johannesburg prison, police said on Tuesday.
”They climbed over the Nyala [armoured police van], hit it with spades and threw stones at it, leaving its windows cracked,” said Constable Sefako Xaba.
The uniformed pupils, who arrived in droves for the court hearing from various schools, demanded that the five men, aged 18 to 26, be denied bail.
Xaba said the incident was ”very disappointing”.
”What they did is uncalled for. It is not like those men are freely walking the streets … They are in custody and are facing a murder charge in court.”
He said the matter would be taken up with the Congress of South African Students.
”We didn’t even have enough manpower to appease the situation because police there were only transporting the accused.”
The five men at the centre of the chaotic incident had their case postponed to May 7 for DNA test results to be finalised. They remain in custody.
They were arrested soon after Thato’s battered body was found in a field in February. She had been raped, stabbed and stoned to death. — Sapa