The rape case of a nine-year-old Cape Flats girl seemed to have united political foes yesterday as the ANC Women's League and COPE members took turns to comfort the victim's mother.
A 27-year-old man appeared in the Bellville Magistrate's Court, Cape Town, on charges of abduction, rape, sexual assault and attempted murder.
The Grade 3 girl is in an intensive care unit at the Red Cross Children's Hospital.
She was tied up, strangled, burned and left to die in undergrowth in Delft, a township on the outskirts of Cape Town, on Sunday.
"That man must rot in jail," said ANC MP Xoliswa Makasi. "We are not here because voting is around the corner."
The case was postponed to January 28 to give police time to establish the suspect's residential address.
Eric Ntabazalila, spokesman for the National Prosecution Authority in Western Cape, said the state would oppose bail.
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