Everson Luhanga
Months of investigations conducted by a detective and a team of advocates culminated on Monday with Gift Mkhwanazi being handed 12 life sentences and over 300 years in prison.
Advocate Adele De Klerk of the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) and Detective Sergeant Lesford Mangwale succeeded in their goal of removing one of South Africa’s most notorious serial rapists from society.
Mkhwanazi, known in the media as the “Beast of Tembisa” was convicted of raping and assaulting 18 women, but was linked to 15 other cases.
De Klerk told Scrolla.Africa that prosecutors are the gatekeepers of criminal law.
“We represent the public interest in the criminal justice process,” she said.
She said one of the challenges in Mkhwanazi’s case was the fact that some of his victims were raped as far back as 2013 and had lost hope in the criminal justice system.
The rapist was only arrested when Mkhwanazi’s final two victims showed the police the locations at which they were attacked, and the DNA of the accused was found at the scene.
He was also positively linked to a cell phone from one of the victims.
De Klerk said out of the original 33 victims that were identified, only 18 testified in the trial despite various consultations.
It was clear from the outset of the case that the victims had undergone an extremely traumatic experience and some could not face their attacker in court.
Detective Sergeant Mangwale said a case of this magnitude was not easy and it was incredibly difficult to trace the perpetrator.
Mkhwanazi was finally caught when one of the victim’s cell phones was discovered in his friend’s possession.
“I am so happy that after two years of investigating the case, he finally gets behind bars and will stay there for the rest of his life,” Mangwale said
“I worked tirelessly to find the victims and convinced them to testify.”
The detective added that the biggest challenge was spearheading the investigation through use of physical evidence such as DNA, as none of the victims could identify the accused.
“Constant follow-up discussions were had with the Biology section who worked tirelessly to analyse the samples,” he explained.
“The DNA, which linked the accused to all of the victims, was the biggest contributing factor to the success of the case,” he said.
