Rapist’s sisters abuse victims
SIBLINGS’ RAGE AS MAN SENTENCED
There was drama in the High Court in Pretoria yesterday when the sisters of a convicted serial rapist almost came to blows with his victims. The sisters of Jeffrey Tsoku screamed insults at his victims, accusing them of “enticing” the two men who had raped them and saying the women had “bitterly hurt” them.
The victims, who were initially smiling after hearing their rapists would be behind bars for a long time, reacted angrily and bystanders at one stage had to hold the two groups apart.
One victim said she did not expect the sisters to “drop” their brother but they would see things differently if they had gone through the same ordeal the men had put them through.
“They expect from us to feel guilty about what those men did to us, but we did nothing wrong.”
Acting Judge MS Makuma sentenced Tsoku, 40, and his friend, Samuel Ngobeni, 43, to six life terms each for gang-raping a series of women from 2013-2016.
Tsoku was sentenced to a further 480 years’ imprisonment and Ngobeni to a further 288 years’ imprisonment on charges of rape and robbery with aggravating circumstances, but the judge ordered that some of the sentences run concurrently with their life sentences.
The two former security guards for years waged a reign of terror on women, most of them waitresses seeking a lift after working late at night in Akasia, Rosslyn and Brits. They offered the women lifts but then threatened them with violence and took them to deserted spots where the women were raped, robbed and left alone in the dark.
The men pleaded guilty to the charges but only testified after the state offered hand-written statements in which the victims shared how the rapes had ruined their lives. They no longer trusted men and lived in fear that their rapists would come back and kill them.