DELAYED JUSTICE
Rape suspect only arraigned in court 9 years after crime
Village Magistrate Court Judge, Lindiwe Makgoro was not a happy woman on Monday, falling short of labeling Sergeant Dumilani Sethako and the prosecuting officer incompetent.
Makgoro was shocked that a rape and burglary case that occurred in 2013 was only coming in for arraignment this week, nine years later. In the matter, Barobi Seropola (33) of Bontleng is accused of raping a lady of 30 years of age and robbing her a laptop and a tablet worth P10 500. Sergeant Sethako tried to explain that they have been looking for the suspect and investigating the case, adding that it did not help that the suspect was not cooperative. She stated that as part of their investigations, they had to take the suspect’s finger prints but he had been refusing. They also needed his DNA for the rape charges.
“What has been happening all this years, how do you say someone refused to be finger printed and what did you do? For nine years, where have you been looking? When I came here in 2019, I met this man here being tried for other offences. “How do you investigate burglary for nine years, what will happen with a murder case. Your office keeps saying it will rectify its lapses and I do not know when and how they will really do it,” said an unhappy Makgoro. For his part, Seropola begged court to throw out the case, saying that the prosecutors want to mislead court.
“I have no idea what they are talking about. I have never refused to be finger printed or for them to draw my blood. What I asked them was why they needed my blood when I had never been arraigned before court to be told my alleged crimes,” he said. “Even the burglary case, I know nothing of it. I have never been interrogated on the matter. It is my first time hearing of it today, before you my worship,” said Seropola. Contacted via telephone for comment, the victim who was not present in court on Monday said the last she heard of the matter was back in 2019. She was not even aware that her case was listened to in court this week. “I have found comfort in God, that incident is very traumatizing for me but I have managed to somehow survive to this end. I am very disappointed on how my case has been handled to this end,” she said.
To this day, the lady fears sleeping alone because of an incident that occurred nine years ago. She shared that she is unable to live alone to this day.
She was only 21 years old when she was raped by a stranger and to this day, she has not forgotten details of the night. Knowing that justice has not been served does not make it any easy. “It took the police about a week to trace the man who had raped me. They even told me that he was a wanted man in Serowe and Mahalapye for similar crimes. But it took the police six years to finally contact me saying they found him. “He was said to be from prison and I am not sure if he had been in prison all along or had been hiding for six years. When I was interrogated, they put me in the same room with him; he was just a metre away and I was very uncomfortable. He had at the time denied raping me,” explains the survivor. That was the last time she heard anything of the case.