[S.Africa is the biggest user of Mandrax tablets in the world. Jan]

Mandrax has been linked to nearly three-quarters of the most violent murder and rape cases – not involving a gun – heard in the Cape High Court in the past year.

And a Cape Argus review of Mandrax-linked murder and rape cases revealed gruesome similarities between them.

Among the cases reviewed by the Cape Argus, the crimes were found to have been committed either by Mandrax addicts in withdrawal from the drug, or using it in combination with alcohol.

Research released by the Medical Research Council (MRC) and Institute for Security Studies suggests one in five arrested people tested positive for Mandrax.

One in five arrested people tested positive for Mandrax
And in Mitchells Plain, fully half the number of people arrested tested positive for the drug.

The MRC study into drugs and crime – by four medical and criminal experts – revealed that “levels of substance abuse and substance-abuse-related problems are in general higher in Cape Town than in other major urban areas in South Africa”.

The Cape Argus looked at murder and rape cases involving Mandrax use after a review of the past year’s trials revealed chilling similarities in some of the most gruesome cases – which frequently appeared to involve spontaneous and frenzied mutilation of the victim’s body.

Subsequent interviews with medical experts revealed that the abuse of Mandrax – originally developed as a sedative – appeared to numb addicts to the emotions that would normally deter them from excessively violent acts.

Bronwyn Myers, a senior scientist at the alcohol and drug research unit at the Medical Research Council, told the Cape Argus that drug-related crime research revealed habitual drug users frequently suffered from “co-occurring psychological problems”.

Mandrax, combined with other drugs or alcohol, was capable of producing “incredible aggression” while leaving users “emotionally numb”, she said.

Research has shown that the percentage of people arrested under the influence of Mandrax in Cape Town is about 10 percent higher than in those arrested in Durban and Johannesburg, with three out of every 10 arrested testing positive.

“The finding that a higher percentage of arrestees in Cape Town tested positive for Mandrax is likely to reflect differences in drug markets. The Mandrax trade is firmly rooted in the gang activities in Cape Town,” the MRC and Institute for Security Studies research stated.

On Friday, 27-year-old self-confessed Mandrax addict Erwee du Toit appeared briefly in the High Court on charges that he raped his mother’s friend and then beat her to death with a coffee table.

Although admitting that he had killed 53-year-old widow Valerie Holmes after having sex with her in July 2002, Du Toit claims he did so in a drug-induced haze and has pleaded not guilty to murder and rape.

He said he had taken Mandrax and rock cocaine and drunk liquor in the hours before the murder.

A new convert to Islam, Du Toit says he did not appreciate the wrongfulness of his actions because he was on drugs. If found guilty he faces life in jail.

In November, Justice Abe Motala ordered that Du Toit be psychiatrically evaluated at Valkenberg Hospital, but he has yet to be admitted due a shortage of beds at the hospital. The case has been postponed to next month.

Mandrax user Lewis Bowman, dubbed the “monster of Mitchells Plain” after accused of murdering a Mitchells Plain family and using their home as a base for an orgy of rape and assault, is set to appear in the High Court next month.

Evidence before the court revealed that Westridge couple Valerie and Terence Oliver and Valerie Oliver’s son Ricardo Olifant had been stabbed and throttled one by one as they returned home from work.

Both rape victims – one of whom was attacked in front of her four-year-old daughter – testified that they knew Bowman as a “gentleman” before he allegedly attacked them while under the influence of Mandrax.

Bowman maintained he had had consensual sex with both his victims and denied killing Olifant and the Olivers, but later indicated that he wished to contest psychiatric evidence that he had been sane at the time of the attacks.

Past High Court cases have shown that judges are wary of accepting drug intoxication as a valid defence for violent crime.

Justice Nathan Erasmus in 2004 sentenced 28-year-old Manuel Azel to life imprisonment for his brutal Mandrax-fuelled axe murder of elderly Genadendal couple Christophorus and Hendrieka Wyngaard.

The judge described the killing as one of “most cruel and brutal” he had ever seen.

Azel claimed he had carried out the attack while under the influence of a cocktail of drugs.

Acting Justice Beverly Franks in December sentenced 37-year-old Paul Abrahams to life in jail for trying to rape, beating and then strangling his 17-year-old niece Fiona Abrahams to death after she refused to kiss him. He was under the influence of Mandrax and alcohol at the time.

Abrahams’s former wife told the court that her husband had become violent and abusive after using Mandrax.

Only a month before, Justice Burton Fourie sentenced self-confessed Mandrax users Themba Ngxaki and Wilberforce Poswa to life imprisonment for their murderous attack on 87-year-old Irene Mathew at her home in Marina da Gama. The attack came soon after they had smoked Mandrax together.

This article was originally published on page 1 of Cape Argus on January 17, 2005

Source: Independent Online (IOL)
URL: http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click…/p>