Motor Industry Staff Association | +27 (0)11 476 3920 | media@ms.org.za
6 July 2023
Decision to grant Alison Botha’s attackers parole is disgusting
MISA, the Motor Industry Staff Association, is disgusted and furious with the decision to grant parole to the pair responsible for the attack on Allison Botha, one of the most horrific crimes in South African history.
“We live in a country where gender-based violence is referred to as a pandemic. Police Minister Bheki Cele admitted that we had lost the war when nearly 1 000 women were murdered and more than 1 500 others assaulted from January to March this year,” says Martlé Keyter, MISA’s Chief Executive Officer: Operations.
According to her it is totally bisar that Frans du Toit and Theuns Kruger, who violently assaulted, raped and slit the throat of Alison Botha. They were released on parole on Tuesday without her being notified beforehand.
The men served 28 years of their life sentences for the attack on Botha in December 1994. They violently assaulted and raped Botha at Noordhoek outside Gqeberha in the Eastern Cape. Her neck was slashed, and she was stabbed 37 times in the stomach and disembowelled before they left her for the dead.
Keyter says Botha has acted as a motivational speaker for MISA in the past on how she miraculously survived the gruesome attack.
“Today this survivor is scared and in shock because the parole system and the Department of Correctional Services failed her by granting the men parole without consulting her to consider her objections. The Department did not even notify her. This survivor had to learn her attackers are free from the media. This is pathetic,” says Keyter.
According to Keyter, Government is making a mockery of victims by being perceived as giving the rights of offenders’ preference.
Issued on behalf of MISA by Sonja Carstens, Manager: Media and Communication Department.
For MISA Press Releases, phone Carstens on 082 463 6806 or email media@ms.org.za