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Vision of terror: The look Fanwell Khumalo's victims will never forget, and which helped convict the Johannesburg chef of serial rape. His squint - described by the girls he assaulted as "funny eyes" - was instrumental in his downfall. Photo: Anton Hammerl, The Star
Serial child rapist Fanwell Khumalo stood up and looked at his family with the same eyes that had struck fear into the hearts of more than 40 girls.
Khumalo terrorised girls, aged between seven and 20, in the greater Johannesburg area between May 1997 and May 2001. He had once cooked for the rich and famous at his Iyavaya restaurant in Yeoville. He was also one of Johannesburg's most dangerous people. He had kidnapped, indecently assaulted, raped and even robbed his victims, Judge Labe and his two assessors found. Khumalo had claimed mistaken identity. But his eyes had given him away - they were the feature that most of the girls he had raped could not forget. They testified that they were raped by "the man with funny eyes", which - along with his limp, height and weight - had given him away at identification parades. Some girls identified Khumalo by his squint and limp, but he denied having these characteristics. This was an assertion the court roundly rejected. On Wednesday, the court found the girls' testimony, supported by DNA evidence, to be true. Khumalo had sat throughout his trial taking down notes, with a Bible by his side. He never looked at the girls. The trial was not without drama, right to the end. When the court adjourned for lunch yesterday, investigating officer Captain Bongani Linda intercepted a small parcel - apparently muti - being passed to Khumalo by his family. An eerie hush hung over the court as Judge Labe handed down judgment, convicting and acquitting the accused on the various charges. Whenever the court adjourned, members of the public would rise and look at Khumalo in silence while he talked to his family, and they would leave the courtroom only after the accused had been led down to the basement cells. Judge Labe described Khumalo's evidence as "lies and contradictions". He said Khumalo's evidence had amounted to nothing but a theory that all state witnesses had conspired against him. He found Khumalo's conspiracy allegations had no substance. Judge Labe also described Khumalo as cruel, and referred to an incident on April 22 2001, in which the accused had given a 14-year-old girl, identified only as NK, a horrible choice. "The accused said to her that she must choose between dying or being raped. If she chose dying, he would kill her, and if she chose rape, he would rape her. She chose rape because she was scared of dying," said the judge. "What happened to NK was cruel, especially the choice of being rape or killed," he said. The trial was postponed to March 23 to allow for both the defence and state to produce psychologists' reports before sentencing. Khumalo was remanded.
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I'm speechless!
(Erg, couldn't embed the page, so I'm cuttin' & pastin')