Sex slave accused unlikely to get bail

THE FREEDOM of the man accused of abducting and keeping a 12-year-old girl as a sex slave hangs in the balance, following the postponement of his bail application yesterday.

The 36-year-old Nigerian national, who cannot be named until he pleads, was arrested on Thursday after the girl managed to escape from a Sunnyside, Pretoria, flat in which he had allegedly kept her against her will since early September.

He appeared briefly in the Pretoria Magistrate’s Court, where his matter was postponed for further bail information.

According to police, the girl, whose name is known to The Star’s sister paper, the Pretoria News, cannot be published as she is a minor. The Grade 7 pupil lives in Mamelodi.

Sunnyside police spokesperson Captain Daniel Mavimbela said the girl was reported missing from her home in early September.

When she was found on Thursday, she said she had left her home to meet friends at a nearby park outside Silverton.

Mavimbela said she had come across an unknown girl who led her to the Sunnyside flat where the alleged abductor lived. According to court documents, the man lives at Manhattan Flats.

The charge sheet indicated that he was being charged with kidnapping, and for locking the girl up inside a room from September until Thursday, when he was arrested.

He is also being charged for contravening sections of the Prevention and Combating of Human Trafficking Act.

The man also faces a rape charge. The charge sheet indicates that the girl had been repeatedly raped.

Mavimbela said the girl told police that when she woke up the morning after she arrived at the flat, she saw the man sitting on the bed and the other girl was not there.

“From that moment, the man allegedly kept her as his sex slave and raped her repeatedly,” he said.