After nearly three decades in the mang, prison rights activists and the SA Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) are demanding the release of the notorious Station Strangler, saying that he has paid his dues.
SAHRC commissioner Chris Nissen said Norman “Afzal” Simons must be freed as he has served his punishment following the kidnapping and murder of 10-year-old Elroy van Rooyen in 1995, reports the Weekend Argus.
Simons was suspected of being a serial killer after the bodies of 22 boys were found in shallow graves in Mitchells Plain between 1986 and 1994. However, he was only convicted for Elroy’s murder.
He was sentenced to 25 years for murder and 10 years for kidnapping. His sentence was increased to life imprisonment after a failed appeal bid. Simons has currently served 28 years behind bars.
Nissen told the Weekend Argus: “I was present when the bodies were discovered, I took the late former president Nelson Mandela to the house of the Samaai family. I am of the opinion that the law has already taken its course.
“[Simons] has paid for his mistakes, whether he did one or others, leave it in God’s hands. We do not condone any rape or murder but we must not be hypocrites, let us be consistent.
“He must come and speak and say if there were copycats or if he did it because these families need answers, they need closure.”
Prison rights activist Golden Miles Bhudu said Simons had been forgotten by the laanies of parole.
“He should have been out after 13 years and eight months. They know that no one can call them to order, they have forgotten him. The kudicial Inspectorate for Correctional Services (JICS) should have come to his rescue. It is scandalous after 28 years in a democracy. I hope that someone who reads [this] will still show humanity,” Bhudu said.
Spokesperson Emerantia Cupido said it was in the hands of the minister of justice once a life sentence was imposed, and that JICS had no jurisdiction over the length of sentences or parole.
Meanwhile, Nathaniel Keet, 12-year-old Baden Keet's father, has been unable to move on with his life and is now addicted to drugs.
Aunt Priscilla Keet said Baden would have celebrated his 40th birthday in December.
“It is a good thing that correctional services is saying nothing about [Simons’] parole because he must stay behind bars. The police and justice system failed us as a family, we have no closure and we have been given no support.”
Simons, now 55, is locked up at the Drakenstein Maximum Security Prison, sleeping in a single cell with a TV and is also teaching inmates.
According to a report compiled by professor of psychology at UCT, Colin Tredoux, eyewitness accounts were “questionable and not reliable”.
Simons was a school teacher at Alpine Primary in Mitchells Plain, and a patient at a local psychiatric clinic in April 1994.
According to the report, a nurse at the clinic had noticed how Simons looked like a identikit sketch which had been released by the police.
Simons was then part of an identification parade, and images of this lineup show him dressed in a mustard pants and cream top holding the number 23 on a board.
But, Tredoux was not convinced by the eyewitness accounts during the ID parade, saying that Simons was the only one who had been dressed with bright colours and that the first witness was unsure while another “hesitated”.