By Luvuyo Mjekula
The trial of two men charged with raping a Rhodes University student last year got underway in the Makhanda High Court this week.
A 19-year-old from Kirkwood and his 21-year-old co-accused from Gqeberha pleaded not guilty to rape on Tuesday.
The state says they acted in the furtherance of a common purpose or conspiracy when they raped the student.
The incident took place in March last year after the duo “rescued” the student from a robber on her way from a local supermarket.
According to the indictment, they drove her to a remote area near Settlers Monument where they took turns raping her.
She and her friends had gone out in the evening, and in the early hours of the following morning, the student became separated from her friends and decided to walk back to a friend’s residence alone.
Rhodes’ Campus Protection Unit (CPU) shift supervisor George Goliath was the first state witness to take the stand on Tuesday.
Led by Advocate Jan Engelbrecht, Goliath testified that an academic staff member had arrived at the CPU offices and alerted him to a student who had fallen and was getting sick in the vicinity of Atherstone House on campus. Goliath summoned his team to the scene while he called an ambulance.
He said when he arrived, the student was sitting on the floor, shivering and crying and struggling to breathe.
Asked by defence advocates Marius van Zyl and Chris Mzamo during cross examination why he had not asked what was wrong with the student, Goliath said the academic staff member had already informed him she was getting sick.
Next on the stand was a 22-year-old Bachelor of Laws student and a friend of the complainant. She told the court she is a former housemate of the complainant.
She said the complainant called her crying between 5am and 6am on the morning of 16 March 2024. She rushed to the scene. “She was lying there crying. She could not speak. She was having seizures and was out of breath,” she testified.
She said a number of people including students had gathered around the complainant and she had called her mother to inform her about her daughter’s condition.
She said it was only later at Settlers’ Hospital that the complainant told her she had been raped by two men.
Mzamo is set to continue cross-examining her when the trial resumes today.
The two accused are out on bail.
