No relief for man after false killer label

NINE months after his own community attacked and burned his belongings, the man who was wrongly accused of being a serial killer has been left struggling to get by, with no one to help him.

Caiphus Nemavhadwa was attacked by Mamelodi community members after being suspected of being the serial killer operating in their midst, disguised as a taxi driver.

This was after the bodies of three women in the community surfaced with in weeks.

Nemavhadwa, who was truck driver, said he were appalled at how government officials had not reacted swiftly to assist his family as they had done with the murder victims.

“We left with nothing but the clothes on our bodies and have had to survive on my wife’s small salary of R2 100 for a family of six,” he said.

“I have been struggling to get another job because my face and name have been marked with the words ‘serial killer’ every time you search for it on the internet,” he said.

Nemavhadwa said he was also not pleased with the conduct of the police on that day in September when he was attacked.

He said a police officer had stood by his doorway as the crowd started jumping over his fence, throwing stones at his home. The officer allegedly took him by the arm and tried to pull him outside, but he refused to go, fearing the community.

He said the police had led the mob to his home and then simply stood by while he was attacked, despite having taken him in earlier and being unable to link him to any of the murders.

His wife, Christina, said what hurt the most was that no one had tried to apologise for what had happened to them.

SAPS spokesman Lieutenant-Dlamini Lungelo said a case of malicious damage to property had been opened after Nemavhadwa was attacked by the mob, and that he had not been linked to any murders.

Johan Burger, from the Institute for Security Studies, said it was unlikely that victims of mob justice could hope to be reintegrated into the same community after such an incident.

So far, no one has been arrested in connection with the murders.