‘Serial rapist’ found via DNA

AN ALLEGED serial rapist from Khayelitsha, on trial for crimes against five young girls, was linked to the crimes via DNA after being arrested in the Eastern Cape.

Aviwe Hoya’s DNA was not in the police’s database “until he was arrested in 2016”. Police had been searching for him for several years before they eventually received information that he had fled to the Eastern Cape, prosecutor Maria Marshall told the Western Cape High Court yesterday.

Hoya, charged with kidnapping, robbing and raping five Khayelitsha pupils between September 2011 and August 2012, allegedly committed the crimes when the girls were on their way to or from school.

Marshall alleged Hoya ambushed the victims, threatened to stab them, and forced them to walk with him before taking them to an open field behind Esangweni High School in Khayelitsha.

Warrant Officer Rowan Andrews, who was part of the police investigation, testified that the team obtained an arrest warrant when they learnt of Hoya’s arrest.

He said Hoya was identified through many body features but the most outstanding was a “gang number 28” on his right thumb. A DNA sample was taken from Hoya for laboratory testing.

Hoya’s legal representative Advocate Bruce Harrison SC said his client had instructed him to ask why was he linked to five cases, but he was initially arrested in connection with one case.

“How did that happen? How is that possible?” asked Harrison, to which SAPS chief forensic analyst Sharlene Otto replied: “I don’t know why he was a person of interest.”

Otto said every time a rape case was reported, DNA tests were done on the victims and kept. “I don’t know what triggered his arrest, but he was arrested (and) all of these cases popped up. There must be some sort of incident that triggered his arrest.”

She said she received confirmation from the SAPS head office in Pretoria in 2016 of a possible lead as they had picked up a profile in the rape cases.

The trial continues today.