Pretoria - A senior advocate who from time to time also acted as a judge briefly appeared in the South Gauteng High Court in Joburg this week, with another suspect, on an array of sexual charges.
The charges included the alleged rape of at least two young boys aged 15 and 16.
The pair have not yet pleaded on the charges, and may thus not be identified in terms of the law, although their names are known to the Pretoria News.
Their case was postponed until October 8 and they are out on bail.
According to the charge sheet, many of the alleged offences mainly occurred last year. The accused targeted minor boys on Facebook and other social media platforms.
They would request images and videos, and sometimes pay the boys for such images and videos.
“The accused made travel arrangements and payments for these children to come to Joburg, where they would be accommodated by accused two (the advocate),” the charge sheet said.
It was claimed that accused number one groomed the children on how to perform sexual acts on older clients that he would secure for the children.
Accused one would apparently take a certain percentage of money for himself that “clients” would pay to the children for the sexual acts.
Both the accused engaged in sexual acts with the children, it was claimed.
Accused two allegedly made travel arrangements to move the children from accused one’s place of residence to his home, where the children would apparently engage in sexual acts with him, his friends and thereafter be paid.
The accused were allegedly involved in the peddling of child pornography.
The accused would, among others, “surf” the internet for child pornography and in turn would download and store the pornography on their phones and computers, it was claimed .
The children were allegedly depicted posing naked or semi-naked and involved in acts of pornography.
One of the alleged child victim came forward and notified the police of the ordeal he suffered at the hands of both of the accused.
The SAPS began investigations, with the assistance of the US Homeland Security Investigations.
Both the accused allegedly saved images and videos of child pornography on their cellphones and computers.
This led to them being arrested.
Pretoria News