MBOMBELA – Five men accused of kidnapping a six-year-old boy of Valencia on February 27, walked out of court free on Tuesday when the charges against them were withdrawn.
Messers Khothatso Kgaphoca (21), Nthanthla Magagula (21), Petros Malapane (21), Umar Shazad (30) and Hammad Razad (26) appeared very briefly and left the court visibly relieved. Shazad and Razad, are asylum seekers in the country and the topic of much speculation regarding the motive of the so-called kidnapping. Kgaphoca alleges that they were the masterminds behind the kidnapping and that he, Magagula and Malapane were merely puppets in an attempt to extort money.
The drama started on February 27 when a young boy from Valencia was kidnapped and his father received a call to pay ransom of R1 million.
The boy’s family may not be identified in order to protect his identity. The kidnappers demanded that the father to meet them at a shopping centre in Lydenburg the next morning with the money. They then changed the meeting place to the Lydenburg graveyard. Police kept a watchful eye and managed to arrest the suspects and free the boy.
Only after court proceedings were over, it emerged that Shazad and Razad have ties with the boy’s family and the kidnapping was a an attempt to retrieve money allegedly owed to them by the boy’s father after a business deal had gone sour.
Kgaphoca spoke to Lowvelder after the case against him was withdrawn on Tuesday. He explained: “We were walking in the streets of Lydenburg one Friday afternoon when these two Pakistani men called us. It was Shazad and Razad, acquaintances of mine. They asked us to help them push their truck, which was stuck in the mud. We helped them and caught a ride with them.” There was also a young boy in the car.
The men drove around with Shazad and Razad, who then asked Kgaphoca to call another Pakistani man. He claims that they told him word for word what to say and this was when he had to break it to the person on the phone that his child had been kidnapped and that he had to pay the ransom.
According to Kgaphoca it was only then that he realised the youngster was indeed the kidnapped boy and what was going on. Kgaphoca told Lowvelder that fear drove him to comply with their instructions. “One of the men was quiet. It was his quietness that scared me. If I refused to do what they told me, I feared that they would do something to me.”
According to a media statement issued by provincial police spokesman Col Leonard Hlati, police investigators who were called by the boy’s father, were tracing these calls. “His father received another one at 19:30 that day. The caller demanded R1 million for his release. After the arrest, the boy was returned to his parents, who opened a kidnapping and extortion case against the five accused.
Seven days later, the three 21-year-old South Africans, of whom two are still learners in Lydenburg, were granted bail of R 500 each. Shazad and Razad’s requests were denied. According to a reliable source, Shazad’s permit has expired and Razad’s permit will expire on April 5 if it is not renewed.
The case never went to trial. According to the boy’s father, the men have asked for forgiveness and they have now laid the matter to rest.
Mr Adam Kgaphoca, Khothatso’s father, said. “I cannot explain the feeling a father experiences when the police calls you to tell you that your son is in jail. For kidnapping, of all things. For money, for one million rand! The questions that went through my head – why did my son not ask me for money? Why would he need to go to these measures?”
This story has shaken the close-knit community of Valencia. Mr Muhmmad Shabbir of Valencia expressed some of the community’s concerns: “We are not violent, caniving or scheming people. If you have an issue with somebody else, you talk it out. If you owe someone money, for example, you sit around a table and talk it out. You don’t go for quick fixes like this. It just scares people.”
Lowvelder contacted the boy’s father for comment on the allegations that his child was kidnapped as collateral for the failed business deal. “I instruct you not to publish any of this, otherwise I will come and sue you,” was his only comment.
“While they (Shazad and Razad) have made peace with the complainant and fixed family ties, we have to go on with our lives somehow. After spending a week in jail and having our names tarnished in Lydenburg, all because we wanted to help two men who we thought had encountered car problems. The truth is that we were in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Kgaphoca explained.
