Suspected Child Rapist And Killer Acquitted By SA Court
A man who was accused of killing four-year-old Bokgabo Poo has been found not guilty by a South African court.
Ntokozo Zikhali pleaded not guilty to several charges including rape, mutilation of a body, defeating the ends of justice and violating a corpse.
The court acquitted Mr Zikhali due to insufficient evidence.
This is despite the police saying that the accused took officers to an open field where the girl was killed last October in Watville, a township east of Johannesburg.
Judge Ian Cox ruled that the evidence of Mr Zikhali’s involvement in this pointing-out process was inadmissible.
Judge Cox found that though the accused’s rights were read out to him during his arrest, the police may not have adequately warned him that participating in a pointing-out process was not obligatory.
The little girl was last seen on CCTV footage, skipping alongside the man who was accused of promising her sweets if she agreed to accompany him to an unknown location.
The next day, a 63-year-old woman who was sweeping her yard found the leg of a child in a shallow grave. About 800m away, more body parts were discovered.
The gruesome murder of the child sparked outrage and protests in a country with one of the highest murder rates in the world.
Bokgabo Poo’s dismembered body was found with some body parts still missing, in two separate locations.
Mr Zikhali is also facing separate rape charges and is currently on trial accused of violating a nine-year-old girl who lives in the same neighbourhood.
Source: BBC
