Women relive rapes, assaults
THREATENED, one choked until she gave in to sex, another repeatedly punched in the face.
This is how Linda Shabalala raped them while he was on car guard duty in Johannesburg party hot spot Melville, three young women have testified.
According to the women, who cannot be named as complainants in crimes of a sexual nature, he raped them in June and July last year after he had lured them away from safety.
Shabalala, 32, admitted that he had sex with the women, but claimed that the acts were consensual.
On Friday, prosecutor Lisa Davy and defence attorney Leonita Abramowitz made their final arguments for Shabalala’s guilt and innocence in his trial in the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court.
The first complainant had earlier told the court she had been intoxicated on the night of the alleged rape and she had waited two weeks to report it because she felt like it was her fault.
Shabalala and a friend allegedly drove the woman to a cul-de-sac in a residential area under the pretence that they were taking her to a nightclub, before both men raped her.
The second complainant said Shabalala insisted on walking her home after she had drinks with friends. Along the way they reached a park in Brixton where he raped her, she said.
Shabalala allegedly told the third complainant that “[ I] will do bad things to you if you don’t cooperate ” in the same park almost a month later before assaulting her, raping her twice and stealing her cellphone.
Shabalala was arrested that night with the woman’s cellphone in his possession.
Davy argued the women were honest witnesses.
But Abramowitz said the women were each the only witness about their version of events.
Magistrate Simon Radasi is expected to deliver judgment later this month.