Image by: CORNELL TUKIRI
The owner of a Greenside restaurant, where Nelson Mandela’s grandson is alleged to have raped a minor, said police have yet to approach him.
The 24-year-old grandson, whose name is being withheld because he is yet to plead, is in the Johannesburg Correctional Centre awaiting a bail hearing on Friday.
Yaw Dwomoh, the owner of Mama’s Shebeen, said he learnt of the incident only when a group of people came to his restaurant on Friday. “They walked through Mama’s, then went through to the back to the residential property. When they were approached by my staff they said they were doing an investigation.”
They then left the restaurant.
Someone who was present when the group visited at about 7pm said one of the party identified themselves as the 15-year-old victim’s mother.
“On the night this was supposed to have happened, we saw nothing,” said the staff member, who didn’t want to be named. He said it had been a busy Friday night.
Police would not name the restaurant yesterday.
Dwomoh said police had not approached him. “We would co-operate, we have eight cameras in the restaurant, but the problem is that they only hold 120 hours, so by now they have been erased,” he said.
Police spokesman Brigadier Mashadi Selepe said the investigation was ongoing. She said the charge of rape was laid on Friday, a week after the alleged incident. Police could not explain this delay.
“The victim said that on that night she was there with her friends and the accused was there with his,” said Selepe.
The victim had allegedly been followed to the toilet, where she was raped in a cubicle.
She had been examined on Friday and was receiving counselling.
The accused appeared briefly in the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court yesterday on charges of rape, attempted rape and sexual assault.
His advocate, Nico Swart, tried to have him detained at Parkview Police Station, but was unable to get a letter from the station commander to allow this.
