04.18.12
South Africans woke up on Wednesday morning to the claim that a group
of Soweto youths had filmed themselves raping a 17-year-old girl
believed to be mentally ill.
The cellphone video is said to have gone viral among school kids in
the township south of Johannesburg, and the term#rapevideo was
trending on Twitter in South Africa on Wednesday.
The Daily Sun, a local tabloid, reports that it alerted the police
after a concerned mother whose daughter was watching the video handed
it over to the paper on Tuesday.
"The mother of a teenage girl saw the horrifying pictures and
confiscated her daughter's phone. A work colleague of the woman said
they recognized some of the boys and advised her to take the video to
Daily Sun," the newspaper reported.
The suspects, aged between 14 and 20, were arrested Tuesday morning
and charged with kidnapping and rape, police spokesperson Warrant
Officer Kay Makhubela said.
"The video is very bad. The men can be clearly identified as they take
turns raping and filming her," she told CNN.
The girl's mother reported her missing on March 21, Makhubela said.
Media reports suggest the police initially failed to open a missing
persons case but that they have since done so.
Police suspect the girl was kidnapped and turned into a sex slave.
A local radio station got hold of the video and has been getting
requests to post it./- - -
No comments:
Post a Comment