Limpopo aims to clamp down on rapists
2013-02-12 19:54
Johannesburg - Rapists in Limpopo could face an additional charge of attempted murder if they tested positive for HIV, police spokesman Brigadier Hangwani Mulaudzi said on Tuesday.
"We are actually enforcing the law. We want to because of the prevalence of rape. [Rapists] should face the full might of the law," he said.
Mulaudzi said since January, when someone was arrested for rape, an application for HIV testing was made to a magistrate, in accordance with the provision of the Sexual Offences Act, Act.
"The magistrate will give an order to proceed with the HIV test. That is very critical. We don't do anything haphazardly."
He said if the person tested positive, police would add an attempted murder charge to the docket.
Mulaudzi said he believed Limpopo was the only province to actively enforce the Act.
"The decision to do so came from provincial police commissioner, Lieutenant General Simon Mpembe.
"We are doing it because we feel it is critical to enforce this law," he said.
"We are fighting crime. There is an outcry in the country and it is also escalating in the province. It has to be dealt with."
This stricter enforcement of the Act comes as South Africans express their outrage following the rape and murder of Bredasdorp teenager Anene Booysen.
Booysen, 17, was gang-raped and disembowelled after visiting a club on Friday, 1 February.
She was found at the Asla construction site where she worked, not far from her RDP home, the next morning. She died later that day.
The two men charged with her rape and murder appeared in the Bredasdorp Magistrate's Court on Tuesday.
The matter was postponed until 26 February.
- SAPA
