A man found guilty of 14 charges of rape and 11 of robbery with aggravating circumstances collapsed and died during court proceedings in the Ga-Rankuwa Regional Court last week Thursday.
Johannes Jojo Shabangu, (35), reportedly fell ill and collapsed in the holding cells.
"This was after Judge Andre Peterson reviewed his guilty plea statement and subsequently found him guilty of all charges, following the guilty plea", said Henry Mamothame, the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) Regional spokesperson.
The case was set for Victim Impact Statements readings in court before sentencing. It was imposed and rolled over to August 3 last week, providing Shabangu with medical attention.
In court, Shabangu was declared dead by the paramedics, and a death certificate was presented to Judge Peterson. The Judge said proceedings were finalised and ordered the death certificate to be filed with the registrar of the High Court of the South-North West Division. He further instructed that an inquest docket must be registered to determine the cause of Shabangu's death.
Shabangu's court appearance emanates from incidents in Winterveldt in the Odi District from July 2012 to December 2019. Shabangu, with unknown accomplices, raped and robbed multiple women of their properties.
.The evidence gathered in the indictment indicates that in some instances, Shabangu and his accomplices would confront couples coming from places of leisure in the evenings, threaten them with a firearm, beat up the boyfriends, rob them of their belongings and subsequently take turns to rape the female victims.
Meanwhile, during the robberies, it emerged that they would break into homes and apply the same modus operandi. In other instances, they would accost a group of women and rob them before picking on one of them to rape. The youngest victim was 14 years old at the time in June 2015.
"In his guilty plea statement read by his attorney, he took responsibility for all the charges he was facing and asked for forgiveness from his victims," said Mamothame.
