Serial rape and murder accused Jack Mogale told the South Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg on Wednesday that he knew nothing of the rape, murder and kidnapping charges against him.
“I know nothing about these matters,” he replied to a question by defence counsel advocate Buhle Madondo.
Mogale faces 61 charges including rape, murder and kidnapping, carried out in Westonaria and Lenasia in 2008 and 2009.
Madondo also asked Mogale about the events of March 17 2008, when he left the Westonaria Magistrate’s Court after a case against him was postponed.
The court previously heard that he was on a train when he bumped into Emelina Mhangwani, a woman he later allegedly assaulted, robbed of her cellphone, raped and killed.
Judge Frans Kgomo asked Mogale if he remembered speaking to Mhangwani.
Mogale said: “I was very tired after attending court. When people talk to me I do not remember it. I don’t remember talking to anyone on my way home.”
Wearing a blue, collared shirt without a tie, he rocked back and forth while on the stand.
“I alighted at Waterworks station, from there I went home,” he said.
Cellphone
Madondo enquired about a cellphone that was taken from Mogale’s house on the night of his arrest on March 27 2009.
Mogale said he found the Samsung E250 cellphone in a blue plastic bag in Westonaria along with R500 in cash, but it was broken and he took it for repairs.
“I fetched it on March 21 and started to use it. That’s all I know,” he said through his translator, Captain Solomon Rapadu.
The court had previously heard that on March 17 Mogale’s SIM card was put into Mhangwani’s cellphone, picked up through the cellular network.
Mogale said he did not know anything about that.
“I used that cellphone from the 21st to the 27th of March,” he said.
The accused also identified other items found on crime scenes and at his home. He said certain women’s items were his wife’s who used traditional medicine. Certain bead necklaces were also identified as hers.
Earlier, investigating officer Samuel Frederik Ungerer said white and blue beads were found at the crime scene, when questioned by state advocate Elaine Moonsamy.
Ungerer said all the crimes had a similar modus operandi and were perpetrated in similar locations. — Sapa