Rape-accused ANC councillor granted R2K bail, case postponed to February

An ANC councillor facing rape charges has been granted R2 000 bail in the Alexandra Magistrate’s Court.

The councillor, who cannot be named, was arrested over the weekend and appeared in court on Monday.

Ahead of his appearance, the ANC in Johannesburg warned its members not to attend the court case in ANC regalia.

ANC regional secretary Dada Morero said in a statement that the party was calling on members to “disassociate themselves [from] anyone who is an alleged perpetrator [of] gender-based violence”.

“No ANC regalia should be worn by anyone who will go to court to support the alleged perpetrator. Ours is to support the victim until justice is done,” Morero said.

However, this was ignored as people in ANC colours attended the court case. Morero told News24 after the appearance that there were two groups in ANC regalia – the ANC Women’s League and the second group was suspected to be Youth League members from Alexandra.

“The Women’s League did inform the region of their intentions yesterday and we did not have a problem with that because our statement was clear that we stand on the side of the victim,” said Morero.

On the second group, he said that the party still needed to determine if those present were members of the ANC, before taking action against them.

“We still need to determine who were the people leading the second group and, on that basis, the ANC will determine an action against those who ignored the call from the mother body that no one should be there with regalia. If they wished to go, they should have done that without wearing the regalia of the party,” he said.

Meanwhile, the ANC Youth League in Alexandra accused its mother body of interfering in the case in a statement before proceedings.

“As the ANC Youth League Greater Alexandra, we must state that we are fast losing confidence in the process, in that the case has already been tampered with by senior ANC leaders, advancing their own divisions that are taking place in the ANC in Greater Johannesburg.

“We have seen time and time again the phenomenon of politicians using the judicial system to settle political scores, and we fear that this case may be part of a long running series of attacks committed to the onslaught on the character of the accused.

“We are furthermore concerned by the intention by certain ANC leaders to pressure the court processes to deny him bail and treat the case with biasness,” it said in a statement.

The matter will be back in court in February.

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