Sex ring kingpin Gerhard Ackerman maintains innocence as judgment postponed

Alleged child sex-ring kingpin Gerhard Ackerman maintained his innocence on Wednesday, saying he did nothing wrong, because the young boys “knew what they were doing”.

This after the judgment in the child sex ring case was postponed to Monday, 24 April.

The Johannesburg High Court was set to deliver judgment in the child sex trafficking case on Wednesday morning, however this was postponed because the judge was not feeling well.

Fifty-two-year-old Ackerman faces over 730 charges, including rape and attempted murder, for allegedly running a child sex ring, linking adult men with teenage boys for a fee.

Following the postponement, Ackerman told members of the media that he had not committed any crime. “I’ve never done anything malicious, I’ve never hurt anyone,” he said. He also denied “handing over” the young boys to anyone.

ALSO READ: Sex ring kingpin Ackerman claims boys knew they’d be expected to ‘touch’ clients

Ackerman is also accused of sending boys to acting judge and prominent human rights lawyer Paul Kennedy, despite knowing he was HIV positive.

“They knew he was HIV positive, they knew what they were going into… They were fine with it. They didn’t go there to have sex with anyone, they went there to massage them. I told them not to do anything sexual because he was HIV positive,” he added.

Various organisations, including Women and Men Against Child Abuse (WMACA), have called for Ackerman to be given a life sentence.

During the trial, which began in January, the court heard testimony alleging Ackerman abused boys between the ages of 14 and 16, groomed his victims and benefited financially from facilitating their services with clients.

His co-accused Kennedy died by suicide while out on bail last year.

Ackerman faces three counts of attempted murder for allegedly handing boys over to Kennedy for sexual acts whilst he knew that Kennedy was HIV positive, however told the court that he warned his alleged victims from having sex with Kennedy, due to his status.

Ackerman told the court that he was running a massage parlour where the treatments would end with sexual acts, which he called “happy endings”.

ALSO READ: Alleged child sex ring kingpin pleads not guilty to more than 700 charges

Throughout his trial, Ackerman made several concessions, including how he allowed boys as young as 14 to give massages to his clients, knowing that they would be sexually abused. He, however, still believed that he did nothing wrong.

He also admitted he was aware that unprotected sex had a high risk of HIV transmission, citing that when he linked a 15-year-old boy with Kennedy for a massage, he knew that Kennedy was HIV positive.

But he said that he explicitly told the boy not to have sex with any of the clients because of his age.

“Then he told me but he wants to do it because he’s actually gay and his father doesn’t know it, so I told him: ‘look, you can’t do it, definitely not on my premises but even if you go to clients, I don’t want you to do it because of your age’. He insisted that he wants to do it.”

During closing arguments, Johannesburg High Court judge Ismail Mahomed said Ackerman’s version was not only shaky, but it was also all over the place and did not hold any weight.

“You’re the modern-day Fagin, man. Fagin took these boys in London and he taught them how to go and steal from people and bring whatever they stole to him. You are the 21st-century Fagin,” Ismail added.

reitumetsem@citizen.co.za