Eastern Cape teen identifies mob justice victim as one of her alleged attackers

A Kariega teenager who was allegedly accosted and raped on Sunday has identified a man with several injuries, allegedly due to mob justice, as one of the perpetrators.   

As detectives placed the 25-year-old suspect under arrest while he lay in a hospital bed, photographs of a mob justice incident surfaced on social media.

However, police said they were still unable to link the two incidents on Tuesday.

In videos widely distributed on Facebook and other social media platforms, a large crowd gathered in what is said to be Rosedale on Monday.

As a man lies on the ground, an angry mob surrounds him as they punch and kick him.

On social media, speculation was rife that the man under attack was the alleged rapist.

Another photograph shows three badly beaten men lying on the ground, seemingly unconscious.

One of the men is completely naked and the others are naked from the waist down.

Two of the men had their feet bound with rope.

Police spokesperson Captain Andre Beetge said a 17-year-old girl opened a case of rape at the Kamesh police station on Sunday.

The girl alleges that she was on her way home when she was accosted by four men in Rosedale.

Beetge said that according to the complainant, only one of the four men had raped her.

On Tuesday, a Kariega Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences Unit investigating officer discovered a suspect in  Provincial Hospital.

“According to the suspect, he was assaulted by community members in Rosedale, but he did not open a case of assault.

“The suspect has been implicated by the 17-year-old victim as the man who raped her,” Beetge said.

The man will appear in the  magistrate’s court in Kariega as soon as he is released from hospital.  

He was still in hospital under police guard on Tuesday night. 

“The police do not have any documentation that assault cases had been opened by anyone pertaining to the alleged mob justice incident,” Beetge said. 

HeraldLIVE