Court proceedings against the remaining accused may shape investigations into Anene Booysen’s rape and murder, say police.
|||Cape Town - Court proceedings against the remaining accused in the Anene Booysen case may shape investigations into her rape and murder – and influence whether more arrests will be made, say police.
Two suspects, Jonathan Davids, 22, and Johannes Kana, 21, were initially arrested for her attack in Bredasdorp.
Last week Davids was set free and all charges against him were dropped as prosecutors found that DNA forensic tests results of semen and blood had ruled him out as a suspect.
On Tuesday while police spokesman Frederick van Wyk could not say if more arrests would be made, he said investigations into the matter were continuing and information that surfaced during the case against Kana could influence the probe.
“It all depends on what comes out of that,” he said.
About a week after Anene died a story on the police’s official online journal said Anene “was gang-raped” between 3am and 4am on February 2.
In a statement police sent out at the time, it said she died in Tygerberg Hospital at 10pm after identifying one of her attackers.
The statement did not detail her injuries.
Six days after Anene’s death her foster mother Corlia Olivier, had told the Cape Times that police told her that Anene’s body had been totally cut open and “some of her body parts were open on the ground”.
Olivier also said officers told her Anene’s fingers and legs had been broken.
During Davids’s bail application in February, the case’s investigating officer, Edmund Abels, had testified a security guard found her body, with the intestines hanging out, at a construction site.
On Tuesday the police’s Hermanus cluster commander Phumzile Cetyana told the Cape Times in a telephone interview that after Davids was released, Cetyana had addressed the Bredasdorp community about the case.
“I said to them there was an exaggeration of the matter (in the media),” he said. Cetyana said at some point during the meeting, residents had asked how one person could have broken Anene’s bones.
He said he told them: “Her bones were not broken.”
Cetyana said residents had also asked him how one person could have slit her stomach and he replied: “No. No. No. There was no stomach that was cut.”
Cetyana declined to answer further questions and referred the Cape Times to the provincial police.
Van Wyk declined to comment on Anene’s injuries and referred queries to the Health Department.
On Tuesday Health Department spokesman Mark van der Heever said it had never released the types of injuries Anene had suffered.
“This information is patient-confidential and was given to SAPS at the time,” he said.
National Prosecuting Authority spokesman Eric Ntabazalila said: “Unfortunately we cannot discuss the extent of her injuries as this will form part of the case against Johannes Kana. I can confirm though that Anene Booysen was not disembowelled nor did she have broken legs, fingers or bones.”
caryn.dolley@inl.co.za
Cape Times