THE ANC Youth League in Bitou yesterday condemned the recent murders of Plettenberg Bay smallholders Willie and Julie le Roux and the slaying of 78-year-old Wittedrift librarian Johanna Blignault.
Chairman Thembela Mhlana said the Youth League called on all young people in Plettenberg Bay to assist the police in applying the rule of law.
Mhlana said the ANCYL was making the call because all five accused arrested in connection with the three murders were potential constituents of the organisation.
“We condemn these crimes in the strongest possible terms,” said Youth League spokesman Shaun Lose. “They are truly unacceptable. We need to speak out against these atrocities because it seems no one else is going to.”
The Youth League’s statement, the first comment by any political organisation on the three murders which shocked the Plettenberg Bay community, was supported by the Bitou Youth Council.
The statement coincided with the second appearance in court yesterday of three KwaNokuthula men charged with murdering the Le Roux couple on their smallholding near Kranshoek on October 11.
Bongani Mateyise, 23, Luanda Ngabon, 21, and Silengiswe Singaphi, 20, appeared briefly in the Plett Magistrate’s Court and the case was postponed to November 4 in order for Ngabon to obtain legal representation.
All three applied to Legal Aid to provide defence lawyers, but a representative for Ngabon has yet be appointed.
The bodies of Julie le Roux, 50, and her husband Willie, 53, were found at their home on October 12.
Willie’s brother, Ben le Roux, yesterday thanked the Plettenberg Bay community for all the support the family had received in their time of grief.
“We have been overwhelmed by the generosity and sympathy of everyone and we thank them from the bottom of our hearts,” he said.
Two boys aged 16 and 17 have been charged with stabbing Blignault to death in her Wittedrift home on September 19. They are to appear in the Plett Magistrate’s Court again today.
Source: The Weekend Post
