A 17-year-old school girl who was gang-raped in Extension 9 earlier this year had to pretend she was dead before her attackers would stop.
These were some of the horrific details revealed in court during the bail application of three men who allegedly gang-raped the teenager and left her for dead in Extension 9 on 22 March.
A 17-year-old school girl who was gang-raped in Extension 9 earlier this year had to pretend she was dead before her attackers would stop.
These were some of the horrific details revealed in court during the bail application of three men who allegedly gang-raped the teenager and left her for dead in Extension 9 on 22 March.
The men, aged 27, 28 and 29, were charged with rape and attempted murder a week after the incident happened.
It came out in court during their bail application that all of them live in Extension 9. Two of them live in the same street as the teenager.
All the men told the court they intended to plead not guilty to the rape and attempted murder charges.
They also admitted that they knew the teenager and said they believed she knew them, too, because they lived in the same area.
State prosecutor Asanda Koliti said it was clear the girl had known the men because she had identified them by their original names and nicknames.
Reading out her statement in court, Koliti said the girl had met the three men in Nomyayi Street in Extension 9, the street where one of the men lives, on the day of the attack.
According to the statement, one of the men stopped her and asked her when she would concede to his (romantic) proposal.
When she refused, one of his companions told him not to let her go. Koliti said the three men then started their assault on the teenager.
She pretended she was dead in the hope this would stop them.
According to her statement, she eventually passed out and woke up in hospital the next day.
Koliti said the girl was discovered by neighbours, covered by a carpet.
He opposed their bail application, saying that the state had a strong case against the three men.
Koliti put it to the men that they were better off in prison because their lives would be in danger if the court granted them bail.
Granting them bail, he said, would cause public disorder.
One of the men had a 2007 conviction and suspended sentence for assault.
Extension 9 residents had handed over a petition signed by 97 residents urging the magistrate not to grant the men bail.
The men denied being on Nomyayi Street at the time of the incident.
The men's legal aid attorney Nozuko Notyawa tried to convince the court that the state's rape charge would be strengthened only by the availability of DNA results implicating the men.
However, magistrate Dion Kotze said the men failed to prove exceptional circumstances, adding that he did not think it would be in the interest of justice to grant them bail.
Kotze denied the bail application and ordered the men to remain in custody.
The case was postponed to 8 July for further investigation.
The are still two witness statements outstanding, as well as the DNA results.
