Murder-accused of a mentally disabled man to appear for formal bail application
The accused briefly appeared at the court and the case was postponed for a formal bail application set for May 3.
A 27-year-old man, who was accused of murdering a mentally disabled man, appeared briefly at the Mamelodi magistrate’s court on April 21.
The case was, however, postponed for a formal bail application set for May 3, according to senior prosecutor advocate Anne-Marie Bendeman.
This was the accused’s second court appearance relating to charges of beating Koketso Makgafola (26) to death and then dumping his body in a sports field in Mamelodi East section 16 on March 31.
The accused was arrested the same evening.
Makgafola’s family reported him missing on the same night after community members alerted the police to video footage of the incident, said police spokesperson Sergeant Daphney Maila.
Police later arrested the man on kidnapping and murder charges.
“Following the footage and information received from one of the men in the video, police traced the second man.
“He quickly gave up all the info about the suspected murderer and police went to his house to arrest him,” said Maila.
According to the deceased’s aunt, Tebogo Makgafola, her late nephew was on medication for his mental disability and was last seen in the early hours of Friday, March 31 before he was found dead.
She said Makgafola woke up early every day to go for a walk while smoking and the family never suspected this would be the last time “we would see him alive”.
When he failed to return home by the evening, the family started looking for him.
“Someone from the community told us he had seen him in the afternoon at a petrol garage.
“We asked the garage for CCTV footage and it showed him with three men, one of whom grabbed him by the trousers and pulled him away,” said Tebogo.
She said the family searched for the three men and traced one of them to section 16, Mamelodi East.
“He said that he left Makgafola with the man seen pulling him away. The search continued until we were told about an unknown body found in a sports field in Mamelodi East,” she said.
“We took the footage to the police and then went to the mortuary to identify the body and it was indeed him, badly beaten.”
She said Makgafola was a very quiet person who would not hurt a fly.
“We want justice for Makgafola because even in the footage you could see that he was not fighting with the people manhandling him.”
The ANC Women’s League, Sanco, the Young Women desk, Cosas, GBV Women’s Brigade and the ANC LGBTQIA + desk came to offer support to the family.
ANC LGBTQIA+ desk coordinator Jeanett Malapane said the various organisations were there to support the family including the community of Mamelodi because there are a lot of killings in Mamelodi.
“We have handed over a petition to the court not to grant the accused bail. It is signed by more than 150 community members and the online one by more than 2 000 people.
“We are also pleading with the court to speed up the proceedings and start with the trial as soon as possible so that justice could be served for the Makgafola family,” said Malapane.
The community and other stakeholders picketed outside the court singing and demanding that the court not grant the accused bail or “all hell will break loose”.
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