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Neighbour up for child rape
22/11/2006 12:44 - (SA)
By Walter ka Nkosi
Nelspruit - When a little girl grew tired of waiting at a pension payout point with her mother, a neighbour offered to take the child home.
Her mother knew and trusted the man and let him take her daughter, who was five-years-old.
That was the last time her mother saw her alive.
Two days later, a young cattle herder found the child raped and strangled in the veld. According to the post mortem, one of her ribs was also broken.
On Tuesday, the man suspected of the murder appeared in the Nelspruit circuit of the Pretoria High Court.
Noah Ngcondo, 36, of Mandela village in Bushbuckridge initially pleaded guilty to rape and murder, but changed his plea on Tuesday to not guilty.
The State then asked that the case be postponed to June 20 and 21 next year.
Ngcondo testified that he had taken the child straight home and did not know what happened to her afterwards. He said he had no reason to kill her because he was on good terms with her parents.
Ngcondo is accused of taking her to a shebeen on February 7 last year and getting drunk before taking her into the veld where she met her end.
Ngcondo was arrested a week later on February 13 and has been kept in custody ever since. - African eye News Service
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