Love is war
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Love is war
Karyn Maughan and Shaun Swingler
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Love is War
First published by Jacana Media (Pty) Ltd in 2013 10 Orange Street Sunnyside Auckland Park 2092 South Africa +2711 628 3200 www.jacana.co.za © Karyn Maughan and Shaun Swingler, 2013 All rights reserved. ISBN 978-1-4314-0857-3 Also available as an e-book d-PDF ISBN 978-1-4314-0858-0 ePUB ISBN 978-1-4314-0859-7 mobi file ISBN 978-1-4314-0860-3 Front cover photograph of Johan Kotzé © Die Pos/Herman Steyn Back cover photograph of Ina Bonnette © Huisgenoot Author photograph © eNCA Cover design by publicide Set in Sabon 11/15pt Job no. 002088 See a complete list of Jacana titles at www.jacana.co.za iv
CONTENTS Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii 1 Capture. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 2 Kotzé’s first court appearance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 3 Sarita Venter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 4 Prieska . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 5 When Ina met Kotzé. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 6 The trial begins. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 7 Ina’s testimony. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 8 Ina’s cross-examination. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 9 Ina’s cross-examination continues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 10 Kotzé’s testimony. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 11 Jo-marié and Kotzé’s cross-examination . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 12 Kotzé’s mental health. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136 13 The co-accused’s testimony. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156 14 Running the race. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176 15 Judgment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181 16 Marita. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200 17 Sentencing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207 18 Ina today . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219 Acknowledgements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224 v
Introduction
introduction
I saw the 12-year-old girl sitting outside one of the court rooms in the Cape High Court. She was sitting on a bench, waiting to testify. The child was short, and enormously fat. Her eyes looked like those of a teddy bear, stuffed far back into a face that had been swelled by frantic, almost desperate eating. I would later learn, through her halting testimony, that she had been gang-raped, after watching her father being shot and killed by the same men who would savagely invade her body. Her mother was still raw with grief. ‘I don’t know what to do any more,’ she whispered to me during a court recess, ‘she can’t stop eating... she was small before.
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‘I don’t buy her LipIce any more. If it smells nice, she will eat that too.’ The woman’s daughter, it seemed to me, was trying to disappear into her own body. She had been so utterly violated and she was determined to protect herself with fat. I’ve been reporting on crime for over a decade. I tell the stories of the children and adults who endure sexual violence, and spend the rest of their lives trying to survive what has happened to them. The one thing I now know is this: violent and sexual crime is a cancer. It typically not only destroys the life of its immediate victim, but it damages, profoundly, everyone who loved that person. It resonates for decades. Over and over again, I am confronted by the damage that rape does: the depression, self-mutilation, eating disorders and suicides. Rape is a killing, poisonous thing. Before I met Ina Bonnette, I read the story of how she had been gang-raped and mutilated, and how she’d listened to her son die. And I expected her to be broken. But Ina Bonnette is not broken. She refuses to be. As I’ve gotten to know her, I’ve realised that Ina is a brave, strong and complicated woman who decides, every day, that she will not be destroyed by what has happened to her. In a country where rape and violence against women is commonplace, Ina defied social norms and allowed the media to identify her as a victim of sexual violence. She endured days of graphic questioning about how she’d been sexually assaulted. She cried during her testimony, but she survived it. I wanted to tell Ina’s story, not because of the horror she suffered, but because of her bravery, her resilience and her faith that the truth would come out. I wanted to tell her story in tribute to all the women who are failed by the justice system, whose rapists walk free, who are forever broken by what has been taken from them.
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I have asked Ina, many times, how she managed to survive the violence inflicted on her, the terror of not knowing whether she would live or die, the anguish of her son’s murder. Her answer is always the same, a simple sentence, dense with emotion: I made a choice. I wanted to tell Ina’s story so that I could understand that choice. I know the child rape victim who ate herself into a body that could shield her may not ever know that she has a possibility of something like happiness, and I know that some horrors are too deep to be overcome. But the girl who ate her LipIce needs faith too. She needs to see that there is no shame in sexual violation, that shame belongs to those who have harmed her. And that, somehow, she does still have a choice. Because hope can never be destroyed. It endures, even in the darkest places.
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Capture
1
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Surinda du Preez, mother of two toddler sons, sat transfixed in her car, barely able to breathe. A single thought went through her head: I’m looking at the devil. She was staring straight into the eyes of a man whose alleged crimes had earned him the title Modimolle Monster. She was staring at Johan Kotzé. Kotzé’s face had been emblazoned on dozens of newspaper front pages in the week before Du Preez saw him. ‘Wanted’, ‘armed’ and ‘dangerous’ were the words police used to describe him. Almost all of the pictures that the authorities released showed Kotzé dressed in an orange shirt and dark jacket, smiling, on his wedding day. It was 10 January 2012. The filthy and bedraggled fiftyyear-old man had walked out of Duggans Supermarket, a tiny 1
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Pakistani convenience store, located a few hundred metres away from the home of his former landlord and best friend, Dirk van der Merwe. He was carrying a Coke, ten litres of water, Powerade energy drinks and two tins of bully beef. He had been on the run and living in his bakkie in the bush for a week. He knew the store, he later said, because he regularly bought the Sunday newspaper Rapport there. Kotzé would later mock local police efforts to track him down in the wake of his crimes, claiming that he had bought food at local supermarkets, and had twice stopped his bakkie right in front of the police station as he contemplated handing himself in. ‘One time I met a policewoman in the road,’ he would later testify, ‘and she asked, “Sir, can I help you?” I told her that I’d forgotten something but I would come back. I was also at a well-known garage one evening and I bought myself a little something to eat and water ... I was peaceful and nothing bothered me. I wasn’t scared of people.’ He also revealed that he had phoned his ex-wife while on the run, but didn’t call his teenage daughter ‘because I couldn’t remember her number’. Receipts found at the camp where Kotzé had slept as a fugitive would show that he had shopped at the local Pick n Pay on at least two occasions. Despite using dozens of officers, sniffer dogs and helicopters, the police hadn’t been able to find Johan Kotzé. But Du Preez did. She had followed Kotzé to the store after seeing his white Fortuna bakkie at a stop in front of her. It was late at night and she had been trying to lull her two young boys to sleep by driving them around the streets of Modimolle, a small town in Limpopo. Terrified, but afraid that Kotzé would again elude capture, she drove away and then turned around so that he wouldn’t see she was following him. After searching for Kotzé’s bakkie, she saw what she believed was the vehicle parked 2
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outside Duggans Supermarket. ‘I then put my headlights on bright, but I couldn’t see what the registration number of the Fortuna was,’ Du Preez recalled. ‘I didn’t want to drive in where the car was parked, because I thought maybe he was sitting inside that car with a weapon, if it was him. And then I thought, let me just come and stop here at the café and turn around and look at what the registration number is.’ It was then that she saw Kotzé walk out of the shop – and looked straight into his eyes. ‘I was scared to death when I saw him,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t believe that I was [right] in front of him, and his face, he looked neglected. His hair was long; you could see he hadn’t shaved his beard for a few days. He looked to me like the devil. I was terrified. ‘I tried to reverse as fast as I could. That was when he saw me and realised that I’d seen him. ‘I reversed out quickly and I put my lights on the Fortuna, and I could see that the registration number was DCS and [that’s] a Free State registration number, and then I hurried to the policewoman who lives just around the corner. I was on the phone with my mother-in-law and I told her straightaway, “He’s here”. And I pressed the emergency number and then tried to call the policewoman and I let my husband and everyone know immediately. I called everyone. And then I went straight to the policewoman’s house.’ It took her half an hour to convince the police that she had seen Kotzé. Authorities had, by that stage, arrested Andries Sithole, the first of Kotzé’s co-accused. Sithole had told them that Kotzé planned to flee South Africa for Namibia. Many officers were convinced that the Namibian national had long since fled the area and was trying to return to his home country, or jump the border to Zimbabwe. Once they were certain that Du Preez had actually spotted Kotzé, police responded by deploying dozens of officers to search for him, blocking off streets, setting up cordons and 3
Love is War
radioing for backup from national units. But it would be Du Preez’s husband, Anton, and his brother Werner who eventually found Kotzé’s Fortuna. They scoured disused 4x4 routes in the area and searched back roads, before eventually spotting a light from the boot of Kotzé’s car, which he had crashed into a tree stump and abandoned. The bakkie was found just before midnight on a dirt track 100 metres from a road near Modimolle. It was positioned only a few hundred metres away from houses. There was a brown mark on the middle of the vehicle and the windscreen was cracked. Kotzé later testified that he had been ‘terribly upset’ when he crashed his car and had gotten out of the vehicle and then ‘walked and walked and walked’. ‘I don’t know where I wanted to walk that night,’ he said, ‘but I walked into the town. A police car stopped right in front of me. It was raining lightly, and all that they asked was if everything was okay.’ Dozens of police officers had been brought in to search for Kotzé and they had all had been given pictures of him, so his sworn claims that they had missed him seem unlikely. As rain fell around them, police searched Kotzé’s bakkie, which had clearly been his home for the past week. They recovered blankets, clothes, newspaper clippings that detailed his crimes, money and a gas bottle he had used for cooking. As they combed the area, police discovered a camouflaged hideout they believed Kotzé had been using. Empty Coke bottles and food packets were strewn around the site, and pieces of toilet paper marked the areas where he had relieved himself. In amongst the mess, they discovered a series of letters that Kotzé would later read out, haltingly, in Court GA of the North Gauteng High Court. They were all written to his estranged wife Ina Bonnette, whom he referred to by the pet name he had given her during their short and stormy marriage: Bokke. 4
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The notes were written on folio pad pages and documented Kotzé’s week in the bush. They would also give investigators insight into what he would eventually claim had driven his violent rampage. The first entry was written the day after Kotzé committed the crimes that would earn him the title Modimolle Monster. Wednesday morning, 7:30 Bokke I’m beginning to realise that something terrible has happened, and I don’t know what to do. The past three weeks have been terribly emotional for me. You are playing with my emotions terribly – you give me hope so many times ... then I must wait again. I’m going to hand myself over to the police. I’m busy preparing myself for that. It’s the right thing I know I must do so. I’m terribly sorry. I know I must. Thursday I know I must hand myself over today – I’m going to do it today or later. Bokke why did you lie so much to me, there’s so much evidence of that. Why do you play with [my] love for you and the emotions around that. It’s hard to write this letter because then I break. I’m ready to hand myself over to the police any time. I know I must definitely do that, I don’t know why I keep putting it off. Everything must just come out. I have a lot to tell. I’m not scared of the truth – but I think about being held in custody – that will come. I’m in Nylstroom [Modimolle] – I didn’t flee, I couldn’t flee because I could scarcely drive the car. Bokke you must please try to sleep.
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Friday Bokke I wonder how it’s going with you today. I realise that things went wrong. I can’t hide away from the facts. You were many things to me. I was your everything and you were mine. Why did you allow Conrad to stand between us. Who helped you when he wanted nothing to do with you. You know that not even Rex helped you. I had to do all the dirty work – I had to discipline him and I succeeded but when he came right I was left in the road while I still needed you. I love you Bok. Very very very much love ... I’m beginning to miss you very much. It isn’t true what the radio says, that those men raped you. The doctor can confirm that they weren’t inside you. It maybe looked like that but there was too much tension. There were also only 2 that tried, the third one didn’t. Nobody wanted to kill you. I also didn’t point the gun at him – I didn’t even know that the gun was there Bok. When they were gone I took the gun out. I wish the police would catch me today – I’m finished, finished – I really want to hand myself over to them, the right men. The radio talks all day differently about the events. I’ve been in Nylstroom the whole time, don’t have a plan to run away, will hand myself over but every time something else disturbs me and then again I’m uncertain. Saturday morning Bok I miss you so much today, wondering again why you never listened to me. Why did you always use me to get your things right. I was there for you every day. Why did you allow your dad and family to interfere in our marriage and to turn the children against us? Why did you allow Nico to interfere so much and to know everything about us. Why did you allow Grandpa and Nico to talk to us like that and Grandpa acknowledged 6
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that and said it would never happen again. Why Bokke Why. I love you so much and I don’t want to lose you. Hennie Viljoen can testify and all our friends. Why didn’t you listen to Hennie. Bok you never wanted to accept authority. If there was trouble in our house, I always had to sort it out. When things came right then I was left out in the cold because Conrad can’t just do what he wants. The radio says I’m not in Limpopo. That’s not true, don’t want to flee, and will not flee. I hear the radio say that you’re in hospital. Bok I am sorry and I want you to be 100% – love you so much. I can’t live without you. Why did you allow that man in the Volvo to feel your breasts. Bok I was sitting next to you and I wanted to go mad, I watched from the evening to the morning at half past two how you two were kissing Bok – I broke my wife because what you say and do are different my wife. How can I believe you when you say that Nico didn’t visit you when I was in Bloemfontein – you called me yourself and told me about the story – why does Nico eat at our house while I’m in Bloemfontein. Bok do you know how I felt when I heard that. Alone Conrad makes me look bad in front of other people, then Grandpa Kurt laughs. I’m good to him, my wife. You all broke me. Sunday Bokke I don’t know what to think today. I wish the police find me. I don’t have the will to hand myself over but I really want to. If we only just talked honestly with each other, then we wouldn’t be in this big mess. You promised to talk, you never did it. When I asked what was wrong then you said everything was alright. I don’t feel good today. I don’t know how I feel. Monday morning Bok the news lies. I’m still in Nylstroom, I’m depressed and sleepy and I think about you a lot. Why did you do this to 7
Love is War
me. Why did you betray me. My whole life revolved around you but you lied to me. I caught you myself, you betrayed me. You said you wouldn’t betray me and that you wanted me back. You said no man had come near you except me. You alone allowed Conrad to control our whole lives. Your father supported him in his wrongdoing. He does just what he wants. He was a soft terrorist. I wish the police get me today. It’s not true that I’m dangerous – won’t hurt anybody else. I love you very much. I miss my child terribly today. Bok it’s five o’clock this afternoon. I almost cried more when I thought about my first meeting with Jo-marié after I hand myself over. And then I think why are you crying my darling. How do I change these things? Tuesday morning Bok I’ve been crying all day. What can I do to turn this thing around. I heard the church bells ringing today and it made me mad. I know I’m going to hand myself over but it’s like I’m standing still and I can’t do it. My memory isn’t good and I can only imagine what you’re going through Bokke. I am so sorry everything became too much for me. I didn’t want to lose you but your lying made me mad. You played a lot with my emotions. Bokke, I love you. Hours after writing his last note, a grubby and exhausted Kotzé made his way back to the home of Dirk van der Merwe, his once close friend. Without his bakkie, he had no shelter and no means of escape. According to Van der Merwe, Kotzé walked into his dental laboratory early on the morning after his encounter with Du Preez: ‘I was busy in my laboratory; I was standing and putting something down on my desk. To my left I just caught a glimpse of someone standing there, and there I saw him and I got a big fright. The first time I couldn’t talk to him. Later all I could say 8
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was “Gee, Johan, gee, Johan”. I said, “Come and sit.” But I was scared, my hands went numb. ‘He had a smell on him. ‘He went and sat down in my laboratory and he said we must talk. I took my cellphone and I said I first must make this phone call. He said but he wants to talk and I told him I must make this phone call and I was busy dialling the police. I was so scared. I didn’t know what he was up to, stopping me from making this call. ‘But I phoned the police, and the investigating officer, and I spoke to him ... Johan just sat there and I said, “Johan, would you like some coffee or water?” He said coffee would be nice. He also asked me if he could have a shower. I said, “No, there’s no time for showering now; I’m going to make some coffee for you.” I went out to make coffee and to arm myself and when I came back, luckily, the police were already there. They arrested him in my lab.’ Describing his capture and arrest in court, Kotzé repeatedly said that he was ‘very, very tired’ when he arrived at Van der Merwe’s house: ‘I was just looking for a place there. I felt the door of his caravan, the door was locked. I walked to his boat to see if there was a place where I could lie down. But there wasn’t any place so I walked behind his house, he has a little house there where he keeps plants ... I went and sat on the ground in that little house. I slept there. I don’t remember what time I walked into Dirk’s house ... I went into the house ... It was there that I was arrested.’ Van der Merwe would later testify that Kotzé had phoned both him and his wife, Vivian, during his time on the run – first making contact within minutes of fleeing the house where he had committed his disturbing crimes, and which he had started renting from Van der Merwe only a month before. Kotzé told his once close friend that he was ‘tired of life’. ‘He phoned me and he was crying,’ Van der Merwe said. ‘He was crying mad, and he said he didn’t want to live any 9
Love is War
more and thanks for everything I did. I said, “But, Johan, no”, and I tried to convince him. I lost a friend committing suicide and I thought this is the same story. I tried to convince him, you know; I said, “Where are you? Where are you?” He said no, he’s already out of town, I mustn’t come and search for him and I won’t see him ever again, and he put his cellphone down.’ Earlier that day, Van der Merwe had been at Kotzé’s house, and Kotzé had said he would help him transplant palm trees from outside his home to a nearby high school. He had offered him the use of casual labourers whom Kotzé said he had hired ‘off the street’, after they had walked past his home. Those same men would later sit next to Kotzé in the dock, accused of helping him to carry out his terrible vengeance on his estranged wife. Sometime after Van der Merwe left Kotzé’s house, Kotzé called him and told him not to return, because he and Bonnette would be discussing their divorce settlement and he didn’t want him to witness the potentially ‘embarrassing’ interaction. In a call made a day later, Kotzé told Van der Merwe that the terrible acts he stood accused of ‘were all Ina’s fault’. He also claimed he had tried twice to commit suicide by throwing a blanket over himself while he inhaled fumes from an opened gas bottle. For Van der Merwe, Kotzé’s words were now impossible to accept or believe. His wife, Vivian, had been the first person to witness the violence and destruction that Kotzé had left in his wake. She had untied Ina Bonnette and seen her mutilated body. She had heard Bonnette sobbing as she held the body of her dead son, Conrad. Van der Merwe later recalled how his wife had phoned him from the crime scene and ‘screamed and screamed and screamed’. Kotzé made no attempt to flee Van der Merwe’s home after the police were called. He would later testify that he had been 10
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in a state of shock and temporary insanity during – and in the aftermath of – the crimes he stood accused of. He said that he found his week-long hiding place, where he had previously walked with dogs and ridden his quad bike, almost by accident. According to Kotzé, he spent most of his time as a fugitive sleeping. He remembered being shaken from what he described as his shock and exhaustion by a radio interview with Conrad Bonnette’s father, Rex. ‘It came across to me that Conrad was dead ...’ he said, frowning. Kotzé would later claim that he had wanted to hand himself over, mocking the officer who arrived to take him into custody. He claimed that Warrant Officer Hendrik Kruger could ‘barely speak a sentence’ during the arrest, suggesting that the policeman was intimidated by him. Kruger had been working the case since just after 5 p.m. on 3 January 2012, when he walked into Kotzé’s rented home – now a murder scene. He had found the .22 calibre firearm that killed nineteen-year-old Conrad Bonnette, whose crumpled body was lying upstairs. The gun was lying on a table. He had also found the first of Kotzé’s rambling letters – in which he revealed the obsession and betrayal that he would later claim had driven his actions: Ask Naas Elers and Dirk van der Merwe, Adel at PSG, Pieter Strydom at PSG, ask all my friends at Brandfort, Hennie Eksteen and Ben. Ask them how Ina works with me – destroys my life, lies on top of lies on top of lies. She cheats on me with Nico de Villiers and with the man in the red Volvo. I caught her myself. Ask my lawyer how she lies Bennie Burger. Ina destroyed my life – she made me sell my farm. I am finished, finished, finished. Ask my pastor Hennie Viljoen. On the table near that note, Kotzé had left a photograph of him and Bonnette. Scrawled across it in capital letters were words that appeared to be a chilling manifesto: 11
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LOVE IS LIKE WAR EASY TO START DIFFICULT TO END IMPOSSIBLE TO FORGET Kruger knew every grotesque detail of the torture Ina Bonnette had suffered at Kotzé’s hands. He had taken her statement and supervised her medical examination and subsequent hospitalisation. He gave no indication of that to Kotzé, however. Instead, Kruger read Kotzé his rights and took him to the Modimolle police station – where a growing throng of locals booed and jeered as the man they called ‘the Monster’ and ‘Pig’ was booked in. Kotzé was covered in scratches and appeared disorientated, but made no request to see a doctor. Perhaps wary that he may be injured or unwell after his week in the bush, Modimolle police phoned several local physicians and asked if they would be prepared to examine Kotzé. The answer was a flat no. Eventually the police contacted Dr Louis Pienaar. Pienaar had previously treated Kotzé for a stomach problem and back complaint. He would testify that the policewoman who called him asked him very politely if he would be prepared to see Johan Kotzé ‘because nobody else will’. Pienaar agreed and examined Kotzé at 1:15 p.m. on the day of his arrest. He testified that Kotzé was ‘covered in dust’ and had dozens of superficial scratches on his arms and legs, particularly on his forearms and calves. Kotzé also had broken skin on his lower lip and forehead – testimony to the car accident that had eventually led to his capture. He told Pienaar that the marks on his arms and legs were the result of his time in the bush, where he’d been repeatedly scratched by thorn trees. ‘He complained of muscle pain ... His blood pressure was relatively high, about 160 over 100. His blood sugar was 6.7, which is normal,’ the doctor said. Pienaar gave the ‘clearly 12
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exhausted’ Kotzé blood pressure tablets, and an injection and calcium tablets to treat his muscle pain. According to Pienaar, Kotzé appeared shocked and dejected – but was coherent and ‘knew who I was and knew where he was, that he was in my consulting rooms’. The doctor confirmed that Kotzé had told him that he had marital problems, but said these issues had not had any impact on his health. ‘At the time that I examined him, the patient wasn’t clinically depressed. If I saw definite signs [of mental issues], I would have noted them,’ Pienaar said. Kotzé’s legal team would later do everything they could to raise doubts about the doctor’s testimony. Pienaar was a confident and understated witness, whose evidence – given without ambiguity or exaggeration – would be an important part of the state’s claim that Kotzé had carefully planned to sexually and emotionally annihilate Ina Bonnette in the most traumatic way imaginable. Unfortunately for Johan Kotzé, that annihilation hadn’t worked. The one woman who had dared to defy him had survived his violence – and would prove to be an almost unshakeable witness against him.
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2
Kotze´’s first court appearance
Forty-eight hours after Johan Kotzé’s arrest, he appeared in the Modimolle Magistrate’s Court – at almost exactly the same time that Ina Bonnette was laying her son, Conrad, to rest in the Warmbaths Cemetery. As she and her family sang hymns and paid homage to the deeply religious young man, crowds of angry locals were baying for Kotzé’s blood. It was 13 January 2012. Kotzé appeared in court with the first of his co-accused to be arrested by police: forty-two-year-old Andries Sithole. Sithole had been arrested after police found two empty cellphone boxes in a cupboard at Kotzé’s home. After police traced the codes on the boxes, they discovered that Kotzé hadn’t registered one of the numbers, as required by South African law. That phone had been used to make numerous calls to a phone that 14
Kotzé’s first court appearance
authorities tracked to Makapanstad, an informal settlement located ninety kilometres outside of Modimolle. The phone belonged to Sithole. Sithole would later lead police to thirty-four-year-old Pieta Mohlake and thirty-one-year-old Frans Mphaka, two unemployed workers who would – like Sithole – stand accused of willingly participating in the orchestrated gang rape of Ina Bonnette. Initial media reports claimed Kotzé had forced the men, at gunpoint, to rape his wife, prompting outrage from the local community and several political organisations. Police were so concerned about possible vigilante attacks on Kotzé that they moved him from the cells at the Modimolle police station to the police station in Bela-Bela – some thirty kilometres away. Dozens of riot police armed with rifles and wearing bulletproof vests guarded the entrance to the court, as an initially small group of protesters swelled to several hundred. The signs they carried were unambiguous: NO BAIL / NO MERCY / FOR THE MONSTER, LIFE SENTENCE!!! and NO BAIL FOR DOGS, ROT IN HELL. One man wore a T-shirt with the words ‘I hope you’re the example for every man that gets away with abusing a woman’ on the front. Another woman held a handwritten placard that read ‘What did you do, who do you think you are, you destroyed your wife, she will never be the same again, her blood is on your hands’. Among the protesters were uniformed members of the African National Congress (ANC) Women’s League, who sang in Tswana ‘Give us mercy, give the ladies mercy’. The Women’s League members were soon joined by a largely Afrikaans contingent of Modimolle locals and dozens of younger women dressed in high heels and minidresses. ‘Let him rot in jail, let him rot in jail,’ they sang. The Women’s League were particularly irate about what they viewed as Kotzé’s abuse of the disadvantaged black men they believed he had forced to attack his wife. The organisation’s 15
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local spokesperson, Joy Matsuge, made the League’s position clear: ‘We are just in the beginning of the year of January 2012, we are having this man who has decided to abuse our fellow brothers who left their homes in the morning to go and look for work, not knowing that they will end up being instructed under gunpoint to rape a woman. ‘So we are saying violence has no colour, violence has no race, that is why we are here. To support Mrs Kotzé and also to support our brothers that had been used to do this devilish action. And also to pass condolences for that late son of Mrs Kotzé. ‘We are appealing to the justice system to really be fair to these men because it was not their intention and they did not know that leaving their homes they will end up being in the position where they are now. And we are saying no bail; Mr Kotzé must rot in jail.’ As the day progressed and the state revealed its case against Kotzé, the Women’s League would have to alter their position. According to prosecutors, Ina Bonnette’s statement showed that every one of the men who sexually assaulted her had done so willingly. But, as would be the case throughout the trial, very few of the people gathered outside the Modimolle Magistrate’s Court seemed concerned about Kotzé’s co-accused. They were there to see the Monster. And, when the police van bringing Kotzé to court arrived, the crowd surged towards it, banging against the sides and screaming obscenities. Police allowed photographers to capture Kotzé’s walk from the police van into the court cells and then his slow ascent from the cells to the dock. Sithole covered his face with his jacket, desperate not to be seen. Kotzé, however, didn’t seem to care. He was led up the stairs into court with two policemen in front of him. Dishevelled but far cleaner than he had been for the past week, he wore a green checked shirt neatly tucked into his pants. He was bombarded by dozens of cameras flashing 16
Kotzé’s first court appearance
in his face, but he showed no reaction to the barrage and made no attempt to conceal his face. At one point he appeared to be sighing. Several of Bonnette’s friends were sitting in the public gallery, each holding signs reading ‘No bail, no mercy for the Monster’ and ‘Comfort the victim’. The heavy police presence appeared to have a restraining effect on the crowd inside court. While spectators outside the courthouse had screamed abuse, inside the court was largely silent – only the sound of clicking cameras and whispers punctuated the stillness. Kotzé stared vacantly ahead, his hands clasped with his thumbs pressed against each other. ‘How are you feeling?’ a reporter asked him. He didn’t look at her. A photographer murmured, ‘Give us a smile, man.’ Kotzé didn’t even blink. Sithole continued to hide his face under his jacket. He appeared to be shaking. The hearing lasted only a few minutes. Kotzé had no intention of applying for bail. While the hearing could have been confined to a brief formality, local prosecutor Renier van Rooyen used the occasion to, as he put it, ‘set the record straight’ about the nature of the state’s case against Kotzé and his co-accused – two of whom had yet to be arrested. Van Rooyen made it clear that the state did not regard Kotzé’s co-accused as hapless victims of his vengeance on his wife. While prosecutors normally never speak directly to the media about the cases in which they are involved, Van Rooyen agreed to an impromptu press briefing after Kotzé and Sithole’s court appearance. Sitting in his office, he explained that the state’s stance was informed by what Bonnette had told police about the attack: ‘Obviously we are working on the statement that was made by the complainant. In the complainant’s statement, it is stated that you can be sure they were not coerced or forced … A firearm was never really pointed at them. So our official position would be that they were not forced, that they were willing participants 17
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from the beginning. They came from far; they were already prepared to do whatever was supposed to be done according to the orders that were given by accused number one. That is why we are proceeding with normal rape cases against them, and not forced rape charges.’ Van Rooyen admitted that the state ‘had no idea’ why Kotzé’s co-accused would have willingly participated in the attack on Bonnette. He said, ‘They are not people that can be coerced ... It seems to me that they knew him from long before this incident. It’s not a question that he picked these three guys up randomly one day and this then happened.’ At the end of the interview, Van Rooyen – a prosecutor with over two decades’ experience – admitted that he had been deeply disturbed by the accusations being made against Kotzé and his co-accused. ‘For me it’s very very very bad,’ he stated. ‘I’ve never seen anything like this, that a person can do this to another human being. I’m not exactly sure of the time frame, but it’s not a question of a minute or two minutes, it was a prolonged period that she was tortured. And last night, when I read her statement for the first time in detail, when I started to draw up the specific charges, it was for me very bad. I did not sleep last night. It was very bad for me. I feel for the family and I want to send my condolences to them, because I think it is really bad for a woman to be tortured like that. And then at the end of that torture to realise that she’s hearing her son being killed in the next room. I don’t know how you can get over something like that. And I really hope that the family can stick together and get through this.’ Van Rooyen was not alone in his horror. Outside court, the numbers of protesters had swelled – and they were clearly very angry. The crowd’s simmering rage prompted police to dispatch additional officers – some equipped with tear-gas launchers. But the additional officers didn’t deter demonstrators when the police van transporting Kotzé back to the Bela-Bela police 18
Kotzé’s first court appearance
station made its way out of the court gates. Dozens of protesters surged around the moving van, with one man even trying to climb onto the back of the vehicle. Community leader Leopeng Tlale was candid about how locals felt about the so-called Modimolle Monster. ‘The community are very angry, that is why we were demonstrating here,’ he said. ‘We wanted to kill him. Unfortunately, the police protected him. He is a monster.’ Almost as soon as the van carrying Kotzé left the court, the crowd of protesters dispersed. The spectacle was over – but, in a graveyard thirty kilometres away, Conrad Bonnette’s friends and family were burying the nineteen-year-old. The framed picture on top of the young man’s coffin showed him smiling, in a suit, at his mother’s wedding to the man who would ultimately kill him. Ina Bonnette had explicitly given local media organisations permission to identify her and attend her son’s funeral. While victims of sexual violence are not usually identified in press coverage, she had stated that she wanted her name to be released. She would later explain, during interviews for this book, that she had allowed herself to be identified ‘for Conrad, it was all for him’. ‘The decision that I made then was that Johan Kotzé must be found, justice must be done,’ Bonnette said. ‘It’s not nice to know that what happened to me is known all over the country, all over the world; I didn’t ask for it. But I didn’t need to be ashamed. That’s how I felt about it.’ Fearing that she may have contracted HIV during her gang rape, Bonnette was on antiretroviral treatment. She had spent three days in hospital following the attack, but still needed extensive cosmetic surgery to repair the damage to her breasts. Once proud of her body, she could not look at herself naked. And her son was dead. Bonnette sat at the front of the church while her son’s funeral service went ahead, barely able to contain her grief at the loss 19
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of the teenager – whose dream was to obtain his doctorate in computer programming and run his own IT business. According to a goal list printed in his funeral programme, all he wanted was to earn enough to provide for his family. ‘Conrad was a child who set huge goals for himself and then reached them,’ Bonnette would later say about her only son. ‘He was sometimes naughty, but any boy is like that ... One of his friends came to me that day at Conrad’s funeral and said to me, “Tannie knows that I lost a best friend that day.” And then I said, “Yes, we all lost someone very good.” … ‘Then he told me about an incident in their class, where Conrad was struggling with a calculation and his friend said to him, “Give me a little swear word, then I will give you the formula”. He told me that Conrad was so steadfast, he never swore, never once. He said Conrad just turned slightly towards him and said, “You know what, old friend, then I will have to fail this subject”. It was wonderful for me to know that his friends had experienced him the way his family had experienced him.’ Also among the mourners was Marthinus Cloete, who had been the last person to see Conrad before he was killed and would be one of the state’s first witnesses against Johan Kotzé. He stood in the church pew, grief etched into his features. He would later reveal how Conrad had joked about Kotzé killing him. ‘He’d also joked and said if I don’t see him later [after seeing Kotzé] I must know where he is ... He didn’t like Kotzé, he didn’t trust him,’ Marthinus said. Conrad’s grandmother Levina Swanepoel told mourners that the young man was the apple of her eye and ‘gave the best hugs’. Conrad’s father, Rex, told reporters that he believed Kotzé was deeply jealous of his son. He said, ‘All I can say is that I think it’s jealousy and maybe a kind of revenge against Conrad’s mother, Ina. That’s all that I can see that maybe caused this incident.’ He added that Conrad had never trusted Kotzé. ‘Conrad 20
Kotzé’s first court appearance
was the kind of guy that loved all people, and he always just said that he does not trust Johan Kotzé; I don’t know why. He just said, “I don’t like him and I don’t trust him”.’
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Acknowledgements
Karyn Maughan This book is dedicated to my mother, who teaches me, every day, just how amazing women can be. To my dad, Paul, Lee, Patrick and Debbie – human beings I’d be proud to call my friends but who I’m lucky enough to call my family. I am lucky enough to work at eNCA, the best 24-hour news station in South Africa. Thank you to Patrick Conroy, Ben Said, Mapi Mhlangu, Seamus Reynolds, Ragani Achary, Andrew D’Ercole, Louis Oelofse and Kalay Nair, who have been kind to me in the face of book-induced exhaustion and grumpiness. Patrick and Ben, I have the great privilege of liking and respecting my bosses and I thank you for that. I am also grateful to my supportive colleagues. I love working with you 224
Acknowledgements
Narissa, Cathy, Phakamile, Thabang, Xoli, Yusuf, Nickolaus, Thulasizwe, Sandy, Lester, Paula, Jo, Mayleen, Nontobeko and Sibongile. I covered this story with a group of amazing journalists: Andrea van Wyk, Karin Labuschagne and Maryke Vermaak. I’m so glad we were in this together. Jeremy Maggs – you encouraged me to do this. I’m glad I listened to you and I’m grateful to work with someone who continues to challenge and inspire me. I work with the best anchors in South Africa. Gareth, Dan, Joanne, Andrew, Nikiwe and Iman, thank you. To my friends: Jonty Mark, I owe you my life. Nastasya Tay, you owe me stolen foliage. Sarah Daly, Kanina Foss, Sam Swaine, Shain Germainer and Kenichi Serino: you keep me sane. Rohit Kachroo, my diabetic brother from another mother. Shaun Swingler, you kept me in line and we did this. Thank you. Bobby Berkowitz, you are my best friend. I couldn’t have done this without you. Lastly, and most importantly, thank you Ina Bonnette for trusting me with your story. I am so proud to call you my friend. Shaun Swingler First and foremost, thank you to Ina for trusting us with your story. There is a war currently being waged against the women and children of South Africa. Hopefully, by sharing the story of a woman who has triumphed over her attackers we can give hope to those who would otherwise not have had it. Thank you to Jonker de Vos, Dirk and Vivian van der Merwe, and everyone else who shared their stories with us. Thank you to Jacana Media and Bridget Impey for seeing this book’s potential from so early on. Thank you to Branko Brkic for publishing my first article; 225
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to Michelle Matthews for taking me under your wing; to Jenna Bass for every project we’ve worked on together; and, to Josie for the compassionate ear and all the cups of tea. To my co-author, Karyn, I can’t thank you enough for including me in this process. It’s been a journey of highs and lows, but I wouldn’t hesitate to do it all again with you. You’ve done a wonderful job with this book and I’m proud to be your co-author and friend. Mom, Dad, Craig and Matty – I couldn’t be luckier to have you as my family. Your constant love and support have made all of this possible. Thank you.
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