Prominent EFF member in Atteridgeville appeared in the Atteridgeville Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday on a charge of raping his own niece.
The EFF member will return to court on 9 September 2025.
The court case of EFF members has divided members.
There are some EFF members who are supporting the perpetrator and some don’t.
Some members were seen outside court singing and dancing for the release of the perpetrator.
According to the charge, the suspect allegedly raped her victim on 21 July this year, and the matter was reported to the police on 22 August this year.
The victim is in Grade 12 at a local Secondary School in Atteridgeville.
The Prosecution didn’t oppose his bail application as he is not considered a flight risk; will not interfere with witnesses; is loved in Atteridgeville; is a resident of Atteridgeville, and has handed himself to the police after being ordered to do so.
EFF member Mahlatsi Kutumela expressed joy that he has been released on bail.
Be that as it may, EFF member Lindiwe Masilela who is in the party’s Provincial leadership structure, told Tshwane Talks that the EFF and all its structures is held accountable by its constitution and principles regarding gender-based violence (GBV).
“Our president Julius Malema speaks against GBV on all platforms of the party as well as in public, and as the EFF we are saying justice must be served; I am a mother to a girl child and as women we must protect one another and if the perpetrator has committed the crime he is accused of then he must be sentenced and serve a jail term,” she said.
“No one in the EFF who is guided by the party’s constitution will tolerate what the perpetrator has allegedly done,” she said.
“The perpetrator has been granted a mere R1 500 bail for a case of rape, just imagine that; we have been failed by the justice system, but we will come to the court every day to support the victim and as members of the EFF we are going to use the party’s internal structures to get the perpetrator suspended from the party,” vowed Masilela.
Tshwane Progressive Civics Congress (PCC) Regional Chairperson Charmaine Kgomotso Phega told Tshwane Talks that her organisation is very disappointed about the fact that the perpetrator has been granted bail and said this decision shows that as a society South Africa is very sick.
“I am heartbroken and disappointed to see that there are some members of the EFF who celebrating the fact that the perpetrator has been granted bail yet there is a child who has been violated in this matter,” she said.
According to sources, two years ago the perpetrator asked the victim’s family permission to sort of adopt the victim and stay with her together with his wife in Unit 19, Atteridgeville.
The house reportedly doesn’t belong to the perpetrator but his wife.
The source says the perpetrator did this as he apparently opined that victim’s family was apparently indigent and couldn’t take care of the victim.
But this year the perpetrator was expelled from the Unit 19 house by his own wife and took the victim to live with him at Mshengu Ville squatter camp in Atteridgeville in January this year.
The perpetrator then started assaulting the victim and at some point in time he would go to school without wearing uniform as he should have denied her a chance to wear it.
At other times the victim would go to school with visible black eyes as a result of the assault inflicted upon her by suspect.
The victim then went to her family’s home in June this year during the school holidays and after the holidays she returned to the perpetrator’s shack in Mshengu Ville, where he then started having sex with her in July this year.
The suspect apparently told the victim to keep quiet about the matter and not tell anyone, because her boyfriend and family won’t come to her rescue in this regard.
“EFF members who are celebrating the release of the suspect are supporting nonsense and I wonder if these women have children of their own; they have failed us; this guy is an animal and has even slept with the aunt of the victim in the past,” said the source.