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Serial rapist case postponed
09/10/2006 14:01 - (SA)
Johannesburg - The case against alleged serial rapist Mongezi Samuel Jinxela has been postponed to November 6 to allow time for further investigation.
Jinxela, 38, who is accused of raping 70 women between 1994 and 2004, appeared in Johannesburg High Court on Monday.
He was also facing charges of robbery, indecent assault, assault, and kidnapping.
State advocate Louisa Loots initially asked for the case to be postponed to January 2007 so that identity parades could be conducted.
Asked by Judge Lucy Maluleke why the state had failed to conduct identity parades in the two years Jinxela had spent behind bars, she said the previous identity parade failed because Jinxela refused to co-operate.
"He sat down and refused to be photographed. The parade had to be called off and we were also constantly trying to organise a legal representation," Loots said.
Her appeal to have the matter postponed to next year was thwarted by Jinxela's lawyer, advocate Harold Knott, and the two parties settled for November.
Just before Maluleke could postpone the matter, Knott asked for Jinxela's "personal valuables" to be transported from the Pretoria prison to the Diepkloof prison in Johannesburg where Jinxela will be held from Monday.
Jinxela was transferred to Johannesburg because transporting him from Pretoria was considered an escape risk. He once made a daring escape from the Roodepoort police station's holding cells following an arrest in September 2004.
Jinxela's modus operandi was to persuade women to accompany him by telling them that his employer had a vacancy.
Once he won their trust, Jinxela would take the women to secluded areas including bushes, mine dumps and fields where he allegedly threatened and raped them.
He would then allegedly rob them of their possessions, including jewellery, cellphones, handbags and money.
- SAPA
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