- Defence attorneys cross-examined witnesses on Wednesday in the trial of three police officers accused of covering up a rape.
- Attorney Clint Short alleged there was a hidden agenda against the offices of the Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences unit, and that his clients were being maliciously prosecuted.
- The rape victim had been held in a cell near where her rapist was being held, and initially claims she was intimidated into dropping charges.
Cross-examination resumed at the Durban Magistrates Court on Wednesday in the trial involving three police officers alleged to have been involved in covering up a rape.
The case involves “Q” (a name assigned by GroundUp to the victim who is in witness protection), who was raped at knife-point in The Bluff in March 2023.
Three police officers attached to the Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences (FCS) unit based at the Brighton Beach Police Station in Durban are on trial. Gugulethu Buthelezi is charged with defeating the course of justice, while Phila Xulu and Sanele Zuma are charged with intimidation.
Q has alleged that although she knew her attacker to be Zwelakhe Mashaba, the FCS officers failed to arrest him and intimidated her into dropping charges. Mashaba was temporarily detained, but then released.
Mashaba was later found guilty and, in February last year, was sentenced to ten years in prison.
In September last year, Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID) member Michael Viljoen told the court that the accused officers picked up Q and her attacker several weeks after the incident, using the same vehicle, and took them to Brighton Beach Police Station.
Viljoen said the accused held Q in a holding cell, while her rapist was handcuffed to the bars outside the cell. The two were left unattended. They were then both detained in the same block of cells, which Viljoen said was against police code.
Mashaba was later released on a 328 form, which is used when there is insufficient evidence, despite there being a J88 form (filled out by a medication practitioner in assault cases) detailing Q’s injuries from the assault.
Viljoen also told the court that in the CCTV footage he had seen, Xulu exhibited intimidating body language. He also said that during IPID’s investigations, Xulu spoke negatively of Viljoen in isiZulu.
On Wednesday, Viljoen was cross-examined by advocate Andile Makhwanazi, who represents Xulu. Makhwanazi questioned Viljoen’s professional qualification to read body language and his comprehension of isiZulu. Viljoen acknowledged that his isiZulu was at a basic conversational level.
Senior Public Prosecutor Sphelele Ndlela was also cross-examined. Ndlela had previously submitted that the “many injustices” in Q’s rape docket led her to determine that law enforcement had failed Q in her pursuit of justice.
Defence lawyer Clint Short, representing Buthelezi and Zuma, cross-examined her, arguing that the police officers had rightfully used their discretion to release Mashaba with a 328 form.
Ndlela pushed back, arguing that because the charges were for a Schedule 6 serious crime, the decision to release Mashaba was inappropriate and should have been made only after consultation with oversight bodies.
Short then alleged that his clients were being maliciously prosecuted and that their prosecution was part of an agenda among general police units to sabotage the FCS, which is a specialised police unit.
Short also submitted that the encounter between Q and Mashaba may have been consensual. The J88 form showed only that there had been penetration and did not show evidence of rape. Short said he would address evidence of physical assault on the form at a later stage.
Short alleged that Q was intoxicated, and that this complicated the case.
The matter returns to court on Thursday.
© 2026 GroundUp. This article is published under the GroundUp Republication Licence Version 1.0. Email [email protected] to request permission to republish.
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Shy Warrior
Who was it that said that the ANC will rule until Jesus returns?
Texas Butterfly
The Man who could only Drink Milk
I know an old man who had lived a life full of adventure, but his health started to catch up with him. He\’d run the Boston Marathon, was an avid surfer, and climbed Everest, but he\’d started to have abdominal pains around his 85th birthday and went to see a doctor. Sadly, he ultimately was diagnosed with a rare degenerative liver disease that slowly made him allergic to everything he ate.
He kept copious notes, and as an avid gastronomist slowly grew to despair as everything he\’d spent his life enjoying became something he could no longer eat. Alcohol went first, then mushrooms, then bread, then root vegetables, then coffee, one at a time he had to remove them from his diet. The doctor was clear: if he kept eating something his liver rejected the autoimmune response would be quick and severe, and would lead to a painful death. Little by little, everything was taken away as an option, until the only thing that remained was milk.
In some ways, this actually made life easier, because the mental strain of remembering what he could and couldn\’t eat was gone, but then so was the joy in variety. But he took it in stride, and got his own cow and took classes from a farmer to learn everything he could about the only thing that could give him sustenance. And even within milk, he could still have yogurt, butter, cream, some cheeses, and other milk-derived products he hadn\’t fully rejected yet, so it wasn\’t all bad. But then one day a few months later he felt the pain again, and he knew cow\’s milk was no longer an option.
Lacking other options, he tried goat\’s milk, and he was delighted that it worked! The protein structure is just different enough that his body still tolerated it. That bought him another month. And that\’s when we came up with a wonderful plan to go on one last grand adventure around the world. If he could get one month of life out of the milk of every mammal, he\’d actually have a few more years to enjoy life to the fullest and see the world in all its beauty. Each month, we\’d pick a place with a new mammal, and he would immerse himself fully with the locals, learn all the ways to prepare the milk, and just enjoy the hand he had been dealt as much as he could.
We milked sheep in New Zealand. Camels in Egypt. Zebras in South Africa. Giant bats in Indonesia. Do you know how many Peruvian cuy you need to milk to get a single glass? I do. Even as his health slowly faded, he stayed cheerful, and I felt lucky to join him on the adventure of a lifetime. That brings us to today when he got to the very end of his spreadsheet, and declared that he was now allergic to every mammal. He\’d enjoyed his journey, but his time had come to an end, for there was nothing left to milk.
To which I said nonsense, I bet we can milk a few thousand karma out of this post.