The woman made a brief appearance in the Lady Frere Magistrate's Court in the Eastern Cape. The incident happened last month in Cacadu, following which, the she was arrested and later released on $273 bail.
Residents came in numbers in solidarity with the mother, including provincial Premier, Oscar Mabuyane and Member of the Executive Committee on Social Development, Bukiwe Fanta. They described the incident as a defense case not a murder case. Mabuyane said he welcomed the judgement, with hope that it would not change as investigation continues.
"It is important that we understand human rights, basic human rights properly, so we believe that umama (the mother) is not a murderer, she will never be a murderer. A murderer is the one who goes intentionally, who go and do something horrible like murder, umama (the mother) went all out to look for her child, to protect her child. So, we are with her. we are here to support her, we are so happy that the court arrived at this decision that the charges are withdrawn and the DPP (Director of Public Prosecutions) is declining to prosecute," Mabuyane said.
Member of the Executive Committee on Social Development, Bukiwe Fanta said the mother of the victim did not deserve to be arrested.
"We are deeply humbled by this outcome that justice is served for Nokuzola. From the beginning when we heard about this we said, Nokuzola was protecting her disabled child. Indeed she has no case, criminal charges must be withdrawn against her, hence we took our pens and wrote to the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) DPP to say, justice must be served for Nokuzola's child," Fanta said.
NPA Spokesperson, Luxolo Tyali said the merits of this case did not allow them to prosecute.
" The docket was referred to the director prosecuting office and after careful consideration by a senior state advocate in that office, a decision was made to decline to prosecute until some investigations have been completed and the matter is now referred for an inquest," Tyali said.
The investigation on the case continues.
---SABC---
