CAPE TEENS WATCH AS GAY MAN BEATEN, SET ON FIRE

A young gay man has been brutally tortured and killed in a horror hate murder in the Western Cape.

The Son daily Afrikaans newspaper reported that 23-year-old David Olyne from Ceres was killed over the weekend while a group of teens blithely watched on.

Senior Reporter Maahir Pretorius told Mambaonline that his investigation had led him to seven individuals between the ages of 14 and 16 and one of 18 years who apparently witnessed Olyne’s nightmarish death.

On Saturday evening, the youths from the Belle Vista neighbourhood were drinking near a local dam when they were invited by a man to watch how he was “going to kill a moffie [fag].”

They arrived on the scene where they found the victim already covered in blood and tied up with wire.

The teens were urged to watch as the alleged attacker bashed Olyne on the head with a brick and jumped on his face while shouting in Afrikaans, “voetsek” [“fuck off”].

Throughout the ordeal, Olyne only made groaning noises, said the teenagers. The alleged killer then placed branches around the victim and set him on fire.

Shockingly, the young witnesses wandered off without telling anyone about the incident. They returned to the scene the next morning to see if Olyne was still alive.

Only then did they inform a woman about the lifeless and half-naked burnt body. She in turn called the police.

When Pretorius visited the area he met with the witnesses and was shocked by how little impact the incident appeared to have had on them.

“I spoke to those kids and they were kicking a ball around and I though that perhaps they needed help or counselling, but this was nothing new for them. They are exposed to violence on a daily basis,” he told Mambaonline.

Pretorius noted that Olyne was well known as a gay man in the area and had participated in local drag pageants. A friend described the victim as a “gentle” person and said that he did not deserve to die in that manner.

The alleged murderer was arrested on Sunday by the police.

Responding to news of the appalling crime, Johan Meyer, Health Manager at OUT LGBT Well-being, said that he was “extremely sad and shocked, to say the least, to hear of yet another senseless murder of a gay person, simply because he or she is ‘different’,” adding that “we mourn the snuffing out of another young life.”

Meyer said that the alleged killer’s words of “going to kill a moffie” indicate that the murder was clearly a hate crime. He called on the authorities to take strong action against the alleged perpetrator.

“We further urge the police investigators to be vigilant and thorough in their investigation, and to make sure that justice will be served. No stone should be left unturned to make sure that this particular case will not become just another statistic. This is a hate crime, and should be treated as such.”

OUT has forwarded details of the case to the Department of Justice.