Serial rapist says sorry to victims

CONVICTED serial rapist Phumzile Luzi has apologised for his actions, claiming to be sick and need of professional help.

Luzi, 39, had pleaded not guilty to four counts of rape and three counts of robbery with aggravated circumstances, despite the court earlier being told that DNA evidence linked him to the crimes.

The women all had similar stories of how Luzi picked them up, pretending to be a taxi driver giving them lifts, and then drove them to secluded places, raped them and left them stranded.

In three of the counts, the man is charged with raping each woman more than once. The rapes were committed in the East London area between May 2011 and November 2012.

Luzi said he knew two of women accusing him of rape.

One, he claimed, was his girlfriend and the other was a prostitute, whom he claimed accused him of rape because he owed her money.

He also told Judge Igna Stretch that he did not know the other two accusers. One of his victims was a Walter Sisulu University student raped the night before her graduation.

Despite his vehement denial, Stretch found him guilty of the crimes.

In mitigation of sentence, Luzi then admitted to everything.

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“I am apologising to them, apologising to their families and also my family. And my heart is sore when I am thinking about the complainants,” he said.

Prosecuting state advocate Sharon Hendricks said Luzi had wasted the court’s time because he had maintained his innocence throughout the trial.

He only came clean after he was found guilty.

Luzi said it was “stupidity” on his part. He added that he was remorseful and disappointed.

Yesterday the court accepted psychologists’ reports which said there were no rehabilitation programmes to cure serial rapists.

“Based on the crimes committed and scientific literature, sexual offenders seem to not stop raping women by themselves. They are usually stopped by incarceration or death,” one report read.

The other report said: “Mr Luzi struggles with an inability to control his impulses.”

Hendricks said impulse control was not a sickness.

“He had no insight of the damage he was causing on the women,” she added.

Luzi’s lawyer, Buyiselo Somacala, asked Stretch to have mercy on his client.

“He is sick and ought to be treated as such,” Somacala said.

Stretch will be handing down her sentence today in the East London High Court. —