Two Port Alfred men charged with raping a 14-year-old girl on Christmas Day last year were both sentenced to life in prison at the Grahamstown High Court this week.
Two Port Alfred men charged with raping a 14-year-old girl on Christmas Day last year were both sentenced to life in prison at the Grahamstown High Court this week.
Months after her terrifying experience in Joe Slovo Street in Port Alfred, the teenager came face-to-face with her attackers in court on Wednesday 23 October.
Wezile Bedesha and co-accused Sonwabile "Matana" Matsalo appeared in court for raping and robbing the teenager. She was accompanied by an18-year-old friend.
Both teenagers were robbed of their cellphones and they took her friend's shoes.
The older teen testified that he was accompanying the girl to her house that night, after she had returned from visiting friends. In court both he and the teenager testified that they came across two men around 11pm.
While walking along Joe Slovo Street, one of the men came from the side while the other approached them from the front and demanded money and their cellphones.
When she claimed not to have either, they searched her and found a Samsung Galaxy Pocket cellphone.
When Bedesha approached the young man, he threw his Nokia Asha and his wallet down. The two men forced the two teenagers into a nearby yard when a car drove past the area.
"When a car approached us that night on the street the men forced us to go into the yard of a house," the girl told the court.
"[My friend] was forced back to look for the wallet and cellphone and I was left inside the yard with the man who had dreadlocks [Matsalo]."
Throughout the incident both teenagers were threatened with a knife.
Testifying from another room in the High Court, the emotional girl who is now 15 years old gave a chilling account of the events of that night.
She burst into tears when prosecutor Advocate Glenn Turner asked her to give a step-by-step account of the night she was brutally raped and robbed at knife-point.
The teenager said she pleaded with Matsalo not to rape her, "He replied by saying he wouldn't, he just wanted [her friend]to find the goods quickly."
Matsalo started to rape her while she continued begging him to stop.
"He told me not to scream because if I did he would kill me."
When Bedesha and her friend had found the cellphone, Bedesha also raped her, she said.
They moved her into the back yard of the house, where they continued to rape her.
The men then accompanied the teenager and her friend towards the direction they were initially headed before the incident.
The teenagers reported the incident at the local police station and two days later both men were apprehended by Constable Linda Tele in Port Alfred.
Bedesha and Matsalo were identified by the victims in an identity parade on July 25.
The two men were given the opportunity to select a group of 10 men with similar features to them to be in the parade. In his judgment Judge Jean Nepgen said the two men underwent the process in the presence of their lawyers.
Nepgen said he believed that the identification parade was fair, adding that two witnesses were even able to identify Matsalo without his dreadlocks.
In his sentencing Judge Nepgen said, "In this case the complainant being a young child who had not reached even 15 years, It must have been a horrific ordeal for her, she was raped by the two of you more than once, two times each and she described how she pleaded with you not to do what you were about to do."
In sentencing, Nepgen took into consideration the fact that both men were repeat offenders.
Bedesha was out on parole after he was convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison for murder, while Matsalo had been convicted for assault.
Nepgen sentenced both men to life in prison for unlawfully and intentionally raping her more than once without her consent and against her will.
On the robbery with aggravating circumstances charges, Bedesha was sentenced to 10 years in prison and Matsalo was sentenced to six years in prison.
