Cheating woman in the dock for lying about her abduction

She spent the weekend with lover, cops say

POLICE worked around the clock to find a woman who claimed she was kidnapped and raped, only to find that she had lied so she could spend the weekend with the man she cheated on her boyfriend with.

When the truth came to light, Nyameka Cetshwa, 24, was arrested and charged with perjury. She appeared in the Joburg Magistrate’s Court yesterday on a bail application.

Her arrest comes at a time when the country is on high alert following a spate of such crimes targeting girls and women who have been reported kidnapped, only to surface dead in some cases.

Cetshwa’s court appearance was her second following her arrest on June 2 in Ga-Masemola, Limpopo, where she had fled to. Allegations are that Cetshwa, who lived with her boyfriend in Turffontein, knocked off work around 4am on Saturday, May 27.

She then called her boyfriend and told him that she was at the corner of Kruis and Commissioner streets in the Joburg CBD waiting for a metered taxi to take her home.

But she never arrived and when her boyfriend tried to phone her, her phone was on voice mail.

The worried boyfriend later received a call from Cetshwa at around 3.30pm, telling him that two Nigerians in a red VW Polo Vivo had kidnapped and raped her. She also allegedly told her boyfriend that the kidnappers had taken one of her phones.

Her boyfriend opened a case of kidnapping and police started to search for her by tracing her phone, which was located in Soweto.

Captain Xoli Mbele of the Joburg police said on Monday May 29, Cetshwa went to work straight from her lover’s residence in Soweto and said nothing of her ordeal to anyone.

Mbele said Cetshwa instead asked to leave work early, saying her sister was not well. Shortly after she left, police arrived at her workplace, but were told that she had just left.

Cetshwa was traced to Limpopo and allegedly told the police that she had rescued herself and went to Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital for a check-up.

Mbele said police went with Cetshwa to the hospital but there was no record of her visit.

“All this time the police were searching for her, she had not been kidnapped, but was enjoying herself in Moletsane with her boyfriend,” Mbele said.

He said Cetshwa had wasted police time and resources, because as soon as the boyfriend reported the matter, they leapt into action because of the many cases involving the kidnapping, rape and murder of women that have been reported lately.

“About 30 police were involved in the search,” he said.