Soshanguve serial rapist Simon Malatji was on Monday sentenced in the Pretoria High Court to life imprisonment and a further 307 years on various other counts.
Judge Ronnie Bosielo sentenced Malatji (32) to life imprisonment for twice raping one of his victims and to a further 307 years’ imprisonment on 30 further counts of rape, indecent assault, robbery and robbery with aggravating circumstances involving 17 victims.
All sentences will run concurrently with the life sentence.
Malatji was granted leave to appeal against his conviction and sentence, but will remain in jail pending the outcome of his appeal.
Bosielo said rape had reached such endemic proportions in society that no woman was spared the scourge.
It was a cancer that spread so rapidly that even babies of six months and grandmothers well into their 80s were not spared, he said.
Unless our courts took a stand to stem the tide, our young democracy was at a serious risk, added Bosielo.
”One need not be a rocket scientist to understand that this crime, together with the sexually transmitted diseases it is spreading, such as Aids, threatens the very survival of humankind,” he said.
The Judge described Malatji’s rape and robbery spree, which started in 2001 and only ended when he was arrested in 2004, as cleverly, meticulously, skilfully and cunningly planned and choreographed.
He said the evidence had revealed Malatji as an intelligent, skilful and manipulative person who had chosen his targets with great circumspection.
The majority of them were young women — many of them students — who were in the prime of their lives.
Malatji knew that young women of that age tended to be naïve and to believe anything, Bosielo said.
With the ”patience of a vulture” he had stalked his prey at the Van der Walt Street taxi rank in Pretoria, waiting to find a young woman who appeared to be lost.
He then charmed his way into their confidence by posing as a queue marshal and persuaded them to go with him to his favourite ”slaughter ground” next to a railway line, where he suddenly turned into an arrogant monster, raping and robbing his victims of their personal belongings.
”Notwithstanding clear evidence, the accused to this day maintains his innocence. As a result, I’m still in doubt as to what could have prompted him into such an orgy, which is patently not what society would expect of a normal human being.”
Bosielo said although he accepted that Malatji — a first-time offender — had an unfortunate, sad, troubled and turbulent upbringing and was denied the moral and social background that could have shaped him to become a better person, his personal circumstances paled into insignificance when viewed against the aggravating factors. — Sapa