Africa-Press – South-Africa. A woman testifying in a sex trafficking trial was accused of being used in a plot cooked up by a man trying to get back at the accused for laying a complaint against his brother who is a police officer.
Defence lawyer advocate Bashir Sibda said the inconsistencies between her police statement and her testimony in court showed she was never at the alleged brothel in Brooklyn she said she had escaped from.
The accused – Edward Tambe Ayuk, his wife, Leandra Williams Ayuk from Springbok in the Northern Cape, and Yannick Agbor Ayuk (Edward’s brother) – have pleaded not guilty to the charges against them, which include violations of the Children’s Act, living off the proceeds of prostitution and dealing in drugs.
“Ayuk [Edward] said the case was only brought against him because he had a case against a man called Zane, who is the brother of a police officer in Phoenix,” said Sibda.
“And this is how this case came to be against him. Yannick was included because he was an eyewitness in that original case against Zane,” he added.
The witness, barely out of her teens, struggled to stay composed on Wednesday after leaving the court sobbing on Tuesday.
“Everything I have said is the truth, and I am not going to answer anything again,” she said.
But Sibda pressed on.He said:”Whatever you did in Cape Town, on your own version, was voluntarily done.”
The court has heard the witness, who may not be named, worked as an undercover sex worker at a club in the Eastern Cape for extra money and food.
She stated it involved exchanging numbers at a club and meeting a client off-site.
The witness said she was offered sex work in a much better environment in Cape Town but eventually had to escape because she was assaulted, allegedly by Ayuk and his men.
To get out, she called her mother, and the family arranged for her uncle to pretend to be a client to get her into his car and take her away to safety.
‘I can’t take it’: Witness in Cape Town sex trafficking trial breaks down in court
Sibda said he found it difficult to accept neither she nor her uncle went to the police or tried to rescue the women she said lived in the house with her.
The court heard conflicting ages had also been given for her – either 13 or 14 – at the time she was at the alleged brothel.
She said her mother told her the matron made a mistake when registering her birth, and she was born in 2003, not 2002 as her ID states. This will also explain any age discrepancies that may arise. She is 18 now.
On Tuesday, she could not take any more questioning and pushed herself out of the witness stand, leaving the court sobbing.
She was back on Wednesday, with a court preparation officer called in to help her through what is possibly her last day of cross-examination.
At one point, Sibda objected to her having the female interpreter and court preparation officer standing next to her in the witness stand.
He said them standing with her created sympathy for the witness, so the court officer and interpreter left the witness stand, leaving her alone again.
The cross-examination continues.
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