Have you seen this boy?
THE Lee Mentoor who stares from the poster is older, his forehead has broadened and he carries the casual smile of a school boy.
Here Liyaqat Mentoor, better known as Lee, is 7 years old, and if he looks anything like this, it means he is alive.
The law has declared Lee dead, murdered by his mother’s boyfriend, Onke Mashinini.
But Lee’s body has yet to be found and his family and the private investigator (PI) they appointed, believe he might not be dead.
In the hope that someone might recognise the boy, the PI Wendy Pascoe recently approached the Italian Missing Children’s Institute, a non-profit organisation that helps law enforcement and missing children organisations around the world.
The founder of the institute, forensic anthropologist Laura Donato, compiled the age progression identikit of Lee.
“You send a photo of the mother, the father and the siblings,” explains Pascoe, who has collaborated with the institute in the search for other missing South Africans. “From this she will compile an identikit of what the person will look like now. Lee’s identikit is so close that he looks like his little stepbrother and she didn’t even have a photograph of the stepbrother.”
Mashinini is serving a life sentence for Lee’s murder, this after the boy was reported missing on March 16, 2018. At the time Lee was 3.
Over the following days, weeks and months there were large-scale searches across the West Rand. Police used helicopters, cadaver dogs and hundreds of volunteers. But there was nothing.
The area of interest was the Roodekrans area, which was just kilometres from Mashinini’s home.
The story Mashinini told investigators was that on the day of Lee’s disappearance, he had been baby-sitting the boy. Kaylah, Lee’s mother, had gone to work.
Mashinini said he had walked with Lee to Kaylah’s mother’s house.
When they arrived at the house, Mashinini claimed two people told him that they were relatives of Lee and bundled the boy into a silver VW Polo and drove off. He insists that Lee is still alive.
At the time, Lee was wearing a grey jacket, black tracksuit pants and short black boots.
But Mashinini’s story kept changing and flecks of Lee’s blood were found on his shoes.
In 2019, Judge Daniel Mogotsi in the South Gauteng High Court, told Mashinini that he had shown no remorse throughout the trial. He sentenced him to life for premeditated murder.
Such murder convictions where no body is found are rare. The most famous was the Francis Rasuge case, where a Pretoria SAPS constable went missing in Hammanskraal in 2004. Her boyfriend, William Nkuna, was later found guilty of her murder.
In 2012, Rasuge’s remains were dug up by building contractors at Nkuna’s
THE battle of the Gigabas took centre stage at the Commission of Inquiry into State Capture yesterday. Former Cabinet minister Malusi Gigaba and his estranged wife Norma Mngoma went head to head about their relationship with the Guptas, their finances and lifestyles.
Mngoma revealed how Gigaba used money, allegedly given to him by the Guptas, to fund his lavish lifestyle, support his father and bailed his sister out of crippling debt that saw her blacklisted by the credit bureau.
But Gigaba – who submitted a replying affidavit and appeared shortly after Mngoma – claimed all the allegations were fabricated and were an extension of Mngoma’s “creative imagination”.
He denied most of Mngoma’s testimony and told the commission that his estranged wife was part of a scheme to destroy his political career.
Gigaba also alleged that Mngoma was rewarded with a car for her involvement in dragging his name through the mud.
Mngoma denied this.
“I pay for everything. He was the only one in the house who didn’t pay for anything because the state pays for everything. I take care of myself. He would only help me when we property in Temba. He had just sold the house.
So far, searches have revealed no traces of Lee, but during the investigation suspicious cellphone activity in the early morning, two days before the boy was declared missing, appeared to be a promising lead.
At 2am on March 14, a cellphone Mashinini was believed to be using was traced to the parking area of the Walter Sisulu National Botanical Garden.
Cellphone records then showed that he moved to an open piece of veld in Roodekrans. CCTV footage at the car park was checked but nothing was found.
Later, a SAPS K9 unit swept the area but without success.
Since Mashinini’s conviction, Pascoe has continued to work the case, hoping to discover what happened to the missing boy.
She has visited Mashinini in jail and she and her team are working new leads
In March this year, the Mentoor family held a vigil and asked the Roodepoort community to join them to light a candle to honour Lee’s memory on the third anniversary of his disappearance.
“Kaylah is struggling to move on. Although there was the successful arrest of Onke Mashinini, the family are still desperate for answers. As for me, I will continue the search, I will not give up on Lee,” says Pascoe.
¡ Anyone who might know something related to the Liyaqat (Lee) Mentoor case can send information to MYSAPS (App) or 08600 10111; or to the Pascoe Investigations Team at 072 649 7683/ 081 010 3888.
Mngoma told the commission that even the renovations at Gigaba’s house were funded by Ajay Gupta and he had helped bail out Gigaba’s sister, who was allegedly in debt to the tune of R850000.
She also claimed her passports, diplomatic and personal, went missing from her home and she believed Gigaba was behind it.
Mngoma said Gigaba was adamant on hiding evidence related to the Guptas and her passports would prove the sequence of their overseas travel allegedly paid for by the Guptas, including a Mauritius trip allegedly facilitated by Dudu Myeni. She also told the commission that all the pictures and information related to the Guptas were deleted from her electronic devices when they were was confiscated by the Hawks last year.
She said shortly before that, Gigaba brought an IT specialist to their home to wipe out all information from their devices but she refused. She also revealed that Gigaba told her it was a member of the ANC’S top six that leaked a pornographic video of him as part of a scheme to politically destroy him.
Gigaba denied having any dealings with the Guptas.
He admitted to visiting their Saxonwold compound but discounted Mngoma’s testimony that it was more than 20 times.