KEETMANSHOOP – A 21-year-old Keetmanshoop resident lives in fear of her life after a man who allegedly raped her was acquited and is now scot-free, because of the lack of evidence for the alleged sexual crime according to her.
Although the victim lodged a case with the Women and Child Abuse Unit of the police in Keetmanshoop, the Office of the Prosecutor General concluded that the case did not have enough merit or incontrovertible proof that she was forced into a sexual act without her consent, the young woman claims.
Narrating her ordeal the victim said she was raped at knife-point by the suspect, whose gang of friends helped carry her into his house where she was eventually raped. The victim spoke to New Era at the Magistrate’s Court where she tried to get a protection order against her alleged assailant Gregorius Christians who assaulted her at her home the previous night. She said she gets the feeling the police first want to see her corpse before action is taken.
According to her the constable in charge of the investigation is related to Christians and therefore could have diluted her statement by adding information.
“She (the investigator) said in my mother’s presence that she is related to the guy (Christians) and did not know how to handle this case, because it is family and there will be bad blood.
But I do not understand why she was handling the case if that was the case,” the woman said close to tears. Chief Inspector Herman Hatzenberg of the Keetmanshoop police confirmed the incident and said the case was merely postponed, because Kooper never made mention of being threatened. “I am sitting with the docket. In the beginning of the statement she said that she was threatened with a knife. She then said that she was outside the house with Gregorius, who saw a condom lying nearby and then he went inside to take a condom from the drawer and they had sex and she signed the statement,” said Hatzenberg. However, he could not explain how that conclusion was reached when the statement mentioned she was forced with a knife.
“The Prosecutor General said we must retake the statement and put in the things she is talking about,” said Hatzenberg.
On the question whether he is aware of any relations between the accused and the investigating constable Hatzenberg conceded that they lived in the same vicinity and that he knew of no blood relations between the two. Kooper had to beg police officers at the magistrate’s court to escort her home, since Christians waited outside with his friends but they were only prepared to escort her up to the gate of the court.
By Jemima Beukes