Gay murder linked to lesbian killing - claim
2012-06-14 13:08
Cape Town – The brutal murder of a 23-year-old openly gay man in Kuruman in the Northern Cape at the weekend could be connected to other attacks on members of the gay and lesbian community in the province.
This is the opinion of Shaine Griqua, director of the province’s LGBTI activist group Legbo. Griqua told News24 of the brutal murder of a lesbian in the area about three to four weeks ago.
The woman, whose family does not want her identified, had her vagina mutilated and a broken bottle shoved into it.
Griqua believes this attack is connected to the murder of Thapelo Makutle last weekend. Makutle was attacked after apparently walking home from a club. His head was almost entirely severed from his body and his genitals cut off and stuffed into his mouth.
However, police said that the victim sustained only a “large slit to the throat”.
No arrests have been made yet even though, according to Griqua, Makutle’s BlackBerry smartphone was found giving off a signal in Prieska, a small town just over 300km from Kuruman.
Griqua said police were made aware of this on Wednesday. Lieutenant Colonel Kedibone Bosman told News24 that they were following up on this lead, but could not give further information.
Bosman said she was unaware of the lesbian murder some weeks ago in the small town and was thus not looking into it or any possible connection to Makutle’s murder.
Griqua said there had been about 15 attacks on members of the gay and lesbian community in the last three months in the province. This includes a lesbian who was recently stabbed several times in a bar.
The Legbo director said, however, that police don’t appear to be seriously investigating the attacks.
Meanwhile, an organisation has decided to start documenting hate crimes against the LGBTI community.
The Hate Crimes Working Group, which is not affiliated to the government’s Hate Crimes Task Team set up last year, announced its Hate & Bias Crime Monitoring Forum. The HCWG will capture all relevant information about a suspected hate crime and analyse and assess it, reported MambaOnline.
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