According to an expert who worked alongside the prosecution, appeals and investigation teams in Norman Afzal Simons’ case, he would not have been convicted under current South African laws due to significant irregularities surrounding the case.
Simons, who spent 28 years in prison for the 1994 murder of 10-year-old Elroy van Rooyen, was released on parole this year but will live under strict parole conditions for the rest of his life.
Initially accused of being the Station Strangler serial killer, Simons was linked to the bodies of 22 boys found in shallow graves in Cape Town between 1986 and 1994. However, he was ultimately convicted solely for the murder of Van Rooyen.
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As reported by the Weekend Argus, Professor Colin Tredoux, an expert from the Department of Psychology at the University of Cape Town, has conducted extensive research on the so-called Station Strangler case in collaboration with ‘The Innocence Project’ in the US. Tredoux believes that both the eyewitness identification and the confession(s) in Simons’ case were flawed, which raises serious doubts about the validity of the conviction.
Tredoux reportedly stated that mistaken eyewitness identification and false or pressured confessions have been major sources of error in more than 370 cases of wrongful conviction in the United States. In Simons’ case, his conviction in 1995 relied heavily on eyewitness testimony, an identification parade and a confession that was later retracted.
A significant turning point in the case occurred in 2006 when Simons collapsed in the Mitchells Plain Magistrate’s Court. The inquest into six young boys killed during the Station Strangler reign revealed that DNA evidence from hair, semen and blood did not match Simons. Nevertheless, Magistrate Marilize Roller maintained the view that Simons could have still been the Station Strangler.
The police released a number of identikits and offered a reward of R250 000.
As per the Weekend Argus, Tredoux highlighted several inconsistencies in the case, including the mismatch between a witness’s description of a man with a scar on his face and the identikit released before Simons’ arrest. Furthermore, during the identification parade, Simons stood out as the only participant dressed differently and bearing a scar on his face.
Tredoux explained that this could have potentially influenced eyewitnesses’ identification of him.
Regarding Simons’ confession, Tredoux raises concerns about its clarity, attributing the lack of explicit details to possible sleep deprivation and pressure during interrogation. Simons mentioned hearing voices telling him to kill but did not specifically confess to committing the murder.
Charles Julies, a former police officer at the Mitchells Plain Police Station, has reportedly urged the reopening of Simons’ case to have his parole period reconsidered. However, the legal requirements for reopening the case demand new evidence, such as DNA, a witness or a victim coming forward.
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