One of three women raped last year on the KwaZulu-Natal South Coast was so traumatised she had to be led away from an identification parade without identifying anyone, the Scottburgh High Court heard on Thursday.
The report from the identification parade was submitted to the court after one of the three accused, Sithembiso Shelembe (23), expressed dissatisfaction with the parade.
Shelembe, Mthokozisi Mbambo (29) and Wonder Mchunu (26) are accused of raping her and two other women at a beach house in Pennington, south of Scottburgh, on December 29 last year.
The three men are accused of attacking and robbing a Gauteng couple later that night.
Mbambo has also been charged with attempted murder. Mbambo was diagnosed HIV-positive ”as far back as 2000” according to the indictment. The indictment said that Mbambo raped the women ”in spite of his knowledge of the potential transmission of a virus leading to fatal consequences”.
The report, known as an SAP329, or identification parade form, showed that the woman identified another man before saying: ”Sorry, it’s the wrong one. I want to look again.”
Detective Captain Don Munro, who filled out the report, told the court: ”Witness number two was too traumatised. She pointed out two people before she started crying. I asked her if she was OK, she said she was not. I led her from the parade.”
Munro, who held the parade at Durban’s Brighton Beach police station in shortly after the three men’s arrest in January, said: ”Witness four was absolutely sure of her three choices. All witnesses showed signs of being traumatised.”
Shelembe and Mbambo were identified at the parade by two of the women and one of the men who had gathered at the beach house for a braai. Mchunu was identified by one of the women.
Advocate Dean Govender said his client, Shelembe, was unhappy with the parade because someone had taken pictures of him before it was held. However, it emerged in the court that Shelembe had been asked by Munro, through an interpreter, if he was happy with the parade.
Munro told the court Shelembe had signed the SAP329 eight times.
”If he was not happy, he would have refused.”
Earlier in the day, the last of the three rape victims to testify said she was told by her rapist to ”shut up” or he would ”blow” her head off because she was crying.
She said Mbambo ”pushed my shoulders on to the bed so that I was lying and then he tried to remove my swimming costume”.
”Then I started crying and I couldn’t breathe. Accused number one [Shelembe] came and told me to shut up. If I continued he [Shelembe] would blow my head off.
”Then I just closed my eyes and tried to calm myself and then someone raped me; I didn’t look, I don’t know who, because my eyes were closed.”
‘Scared’
She said that later that night she was raped by Mchunu. Asked how the ordeal had affected her, she said: ”It’s made me uncertain of myself and scared a lot. I’m always expecting something to happen.
”Like when I’m walking down the road, I am always expecting someone to jump out a bush. I wasn’t always expecting the worst [before the attack].”
Since the crime her parents ”don’t always know how to handle the situation”.
Asked by Govender whether she had been mistaken about the identity of Shelembe, she replied: ”I saw him. No two people look the same except if he has a twin brother.”
One of the two men who was braaing meat, and had to watch the women’s ordeal at gunpoint, said: ”I was seated on the floor. I couldn’t do anything.”
When told by Govender that his client (Shelembe) claimed to be at home on December 29, the man said: ”I would say it was a lie.”
The court heard on Wednesday how the three men were arrested by the Port Shepstone dog unit on the morning of January 6.
On Wednesday forensics expert Superintendent Huibrecht Botha told the court that DNA testing of blood samples taken from Shelembe and Mchunu, saliva from two cigarette butts and a semen stain on a piece of cloth had linked the two men to the rape victims.
Botha explained that according to statistical analysis it was nearly impossible for the DNA profile of Shelembe and Mchunu to be linked to another person. — Sapa