Give GBV offenders longer sentences and stop granting them bail, says EFF student command

The students’ command of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFFSC) has added its voice to many reeling from the brutal murder of a Fort Hare University student. 

23-year-old Nosicelo Mtebeni’s body parts were found in a suitcase in the Quigney area in the Eastern Cape by police earlier this week. 

She was a final year law student at the university.

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A 25-year-old suspect, the victim’s boyfriend, has been arrested, after the student’s remaining body parts were discovered in a home the couple lived in. 

“In South Africa, women are being killed and their body parts disjointed because men believe they have ownership of them”, the EFFSC said in a statement on Saturday. 

“South African laws need to be tightened on granting bail to suspects and there needs to be an enforcement of longer sentences for offenders of gender-based violence.

“It cannot be that while the family of Nosicelo is grieving, [the suspect] gets to plead not guilty and be granted bail when he has taken away a life in such a hideous way,” the student command emphasised. 

The EFFSC has called on government to “prioritise and tighten” the Domestic Violence Act 116 of 1998.

“The EFFSC is sickened and angered by the acts of [the suspect]”, they said, adding they will work with the members of the EFFSC at the University of Fort Hare and EFFSC Eastern Cape in ensuring attendance to the bail hearing, and standing firm in their call for no bail. 

They said the suspect, also a student, must also be expelled, and should not be allowed to study anywhere in South Africa. 

“He should be in jail until he meets his final resting place. South Africa has no place for violent misogynists who see women’s bodies as invaluable, degradable and worthless.” 

A day of mourning has been declared on Wednesday for Nosicelo, with all university activities suspended, the university’s vice-chancellor and principal, Professor Sakhela Buhlungu, said. 

“It is a very dark day in the history of our University. We are left to carry the memory of Nosicelo by fighting gender-based violence in all its forms,” Buhlungu said in a social media post.

Brigadier Tembinkosi Kinana from the Eastern Cape SAPS on Friday confirmed the suspect would be appearing in the East London Magistrate’s Court on Monday on a charge of murder. 

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Compiled by Nica Richards