FUGITIVE SERIAL RAPIST SENTENCED TO TWO LIFE TERMS AFTER DNA LINK
DNA profiling has helped nab a serial rapist, Gugu Honono (32), who had been on the run for more than eight years, resulting in Mthatha Regional Court sentencing him to two life imprisonment terms plus 25 years for three rapes and a robbery with aggravating circumstances committed as early as 2012. The court ordered the additional 25 years sentence, 15 for one count of rape and ten for robbery, to run concurrently with one life imprisonment term. The fugitive’s luck ran out when he was apprehended for shoplifting in Komani in 2022. The police computer system picked up that he was a wanted person in Qumbu, more than 300 kilometres away, where he had allegedly committed at least four rapes.
Honono had started his spate of rapes on his 12-year-old stepsister at their home on the night of 12 December 2012. He had come to his Notsweleba village home drunk and demanded sex from the domestic worker employed by his father and stepmother. When the older domestic refused he attacked his stepmother’s daughter and raped her. The young girl reported the rape to her mother on the following day and she went to open a case. While not staying at home and evading arrest, he targeted young scholars boarding at private homes, colloquially known as Amagxamesi, around Shawbury Mission which is neighbouring his village near the district of Qumbu.
In the first incident, he accosted four scholars in the room they shared and threatened them with a knife. Three of the young girls managed to flee but he caught the eldest, who was 19 years old, and raped her before vanishing into the darkness of the night. On 22 October 2014, he forced his way into a room rented by two girls by kicking the door down. One of the girls ran away but he ducked one with tape and raped her at knifepoint before stealing her cellphone.
When the trial commenced, one complainant in four rape to which Honono was linked refused to testify stating that she did not want to open wounds that she believed were starting to heal. For that reason, State Advocate Bulelani Bidla did not proceed with that charge of rape. With mounting evidence of complainants who positively identified Honono as well as DNA evidence, he still maintained his innocence barely denying the rapes with no plausible explanation.
Welcoming the sentence, Eastern Cape Director of Public Prosecutions, Barry Madolo, commended the prosecutor and the investigating officer for their meticulous collection and presentation of evidence, noting that successful prosecution provides the long-awaited justice and closure to the victims and their families, and removed vicious criminals from the society.
