Pretoria – The Booysens Magistrate’s Court has sentenced 30-year-old Mduduzi Masuku to life imprisonment after he was convicted of raping an 11-year-old girl at an informal settlement in Joburg.
“Mduduzi Masuku, a 30-year-old male Zimbabwean national was found guilty for rape and sentenced to life imprisonment in the Booysens Magistrate’s Court on (Wednesday) the 20th of July 2022. He was also declared unfit to possess a firearm,” said Captain Xoli Mbele, spokesperson for the police in Joburg.
“The accused raped an 11-year-old girl in the veld, next to Jackson squatter camp in Eikenhof on the 13th of June 2020. The mother of a victim had gone to the veld with her neighbour (Masuku) to fetch firewood using his wheelbarrow.”
When they returned home, she asked her daughter and younger brother to take the wheelbarrow back to the veld, to give it back to Masuku.
“He raped her and threatened to kill her if she reveals her ordeal to anyone. The victim eventually alerted her mother on the 21st of June 2020. Police were contacted and he was apprehended by Mondeor SAPS on the same day,” Mbele said.
“The good conviction is a result of diligent work done by Sergeant Paseka Jantjie of Joburg Central family violence, child protection and sexual offences unit (FCS). We hope this sentence will scare away would be offenders from committing crimes against women and children.”
Earlier this year, a 31-year-old man based in Mamelodi East abandoned his bail application before the Mamelodi Magistrate’s Court where he was facing a charge of attempting to murder an 8-year-old girl.
Gauteng regional spokesperson for National Prosecuting Authority, Lumka Mahanjana, said the man and the mother of the minor girl were in a relationship.
“It is alleged that on April 24, 2022, the couple had gone to a funeral, where an argument broke out between them. The following day, while the mother of the minor had gone to a nearby car wash, the accused went to a house where she stayed, to try to work things out,” Mahanjana said.
When he arrived, he allegedly found the minor with her grandmother.
“It is alleged that the accused used a butcher’s knife he found in the kitchen. The mother of the victim heard the screams of her mother and quickly rushed home, then took her injured child and rushed her to a nearby hospital,” Mahanjana said.
“The child survived the incident, and is now back from the hospital and recovering at home.”
IOL