‘Who’s going to bring him back’
Graphic video footage of a man hounded by swearing residents until he admitted he did not mean to kill a teen has gone viral.
|||Cape Town - Graphic video footage of a man hounded by swearing Mitchells Plain residents until he admitted he did not mean to kill a teenager there earlier this month has gone viral.
But the 33-second video clip, taken by residents intent on seeing the man jailed for murder, and which has been viewed online more than 18 200 times in less than a week, will likely not be allowed as evidence.
Residents believe the man in the footage killed Casey Solomons, 17, on September 1.
Solomons had been walking home from school when he was stabbed and his cellphone stolen.
The footage and some photographs of the man were taken last Thursday by a group of Mitchells Plain residents who say they are fighting crime in the area, then uploaded to Facebook.
This week police spokesman Captain Frederick van Wyk confirmed that the same day a 20-year-old suspect was arrested in connection with Solomons’s murder.
Van Wyk refused to answer any questions about the video footage online, including whether the man in it was the suspect arrested by police.
In the video, dark shaky footage shows the man initially sitting on the ground.
Those taking the footage shout at him.
One yells: “Staan regop jou n***. Jy staan regop, jou ma se… (Stand upright you n***. Stand upright, jou ma se…).”
The man then stands up and can be seen hobbling back and forth, his hands apparently bound behind his back and his head bowed in apparent pain, as residents ask him about a gun.
He refers to another man who he says has a .22 firearm.
The man is told to look towards a camera and a flash illuminates his face.
He is then asked whether he said he had not meant to stab the teen.
The man replies: “Ja, meneer. (Yes, sir).”
One of those taking the video then shouts at him that the teen is dead.
The video ends with the same person shouting: “Who’s going to bring him back, you pig?”
One of the photographs of the man uploaded on to Facebook shows him with an apparently bleeding mouth.
This week, one of those who took the footage and photographs, a member of a group of Mitchells Plain residents intent on fighting crime and who asked not to be identified, said they had been patrolling an area near to where Solomons was killed when they saw two men running away.
One man hid under a car and the resident said that as he and his three colleagues pulled him out, about 70 other residents gathered.
“They started screaming and hitting him… Due to the rage we had to load the suspect in our boot.”
The group took the man, whom they realised residents suspected of killing Solomons, to the police station.
“Then we just made the clip as our part of evidence,” the resident said.
Chairman of the Cape Law Society’s criminal committee, William Booth, said that in order for a confession to a crime to be used as evidence in court, certain requirements needed to be met.
“Foremost it must have been made freely and voluntarily, and if he has been threatened and then assaulted such a statement made verbally or in writing will never be admissible as evidence against him as it impacts on his rights to a fair trial.
“The fact that the confession has gone viral, out to all, can also mean he will possibly not receive a fair trial,” Booth said.
Weekend Argus