Child prostitution accused Ackerman said he wasn’t guilty of all 740 charges against him last month. His accused, Zondo Commission evidence leader Paul Kennedy SC committed suicide after his arrest.
The Citizen reports that child prostitution ‘sir’, Gerhard “Gerrie” Ackerman’s lawyer told the High Court in Johannesburg yesterday that his client planned to admit to some of the charges he is facing. Ackerman is accused of running a child sex ring, which was involved in the rape and prostitution of children.
Last month, Ackerman said that he was not guilty of all 740 charges against him. Some of these crimes are raping, trying to kill someone, distributing child porn, and trafficking minors for sexual exploitation.
Co-suspects are dead
Acting judge and Commission of Inquiry into State Capture evidence leader Paul Kennedy, who was also charged with Ackerman, killed himself a few months after they were both arrested for child prostitution.
Advocate Herman Alberts, Ackerman’s lawyer, told Judge Mohamed Ismael that he and his client would sit down and write down some of the things Ackerman wanted to admit to.
Testimony
This happened after a mother said that her child saw Ackerman masturbating in the changing room of the swimming school her child went to in Sandringham, Johannesburg.
The court called her Mrs. M. to keep the child’s identity secret. Mrs. M said that she took her son to his swimming lessons right after school.
She said that her son went into the changing room to get ready for his swimming lesson, and everything seemed fine.
After his lessons were over, he went to the changing room. This time, though, he didn’t change his clothes and came out quickly.
He told me that a man was touching and playing with himself while holding his phone in his hands,” she said. “I told the coach what had happened when I went to him.
The man was already in his car when we got there. They tried to stop him, but he went through the boom gate and drove away.
She said she was very upset by what happened, but she was glad her son told her about it. They had taught him to tell them about everything, good or bad.
Alberts asked her if she knew if the man was already in the bathroom when her son went in or if she had seen him after his son told him about what happened.
She said, “I don’t know if he was already in the bathroom when we got there and I didn’t see him because he drove through the boom gate when they tried to stop him.”
The found evidence
Prosecutor Valencia Dube read an affidavit from Murendeni Muridili, a child protection officer from the Film and Publication Board. Muridili looked at pictures and videos that the police found on Ackerman’s and Kennedy’s phones and laptops and put them in different categories.
Muridili found more than 2,000 inappropriate pictures and videos of toddlers, kids ages 6–12, and teens ages 13–17 on both of their phones.
READ MORE: Child prostitution ‘madam’, Gerhard Ackerman tried to blow ‘his’ brains out
On Kennedy’s phone and laptop, he found 35 photos, 400 screenshots, and 100 photos. Muridili also found 305 videos, 273 pictures, and 1,310 pictures on Ackerman’s phone and laptop.
Ackerman told the court that he didn’t want to question what Muridili found and that he didn’t have a problem with what was on his phone or laptop. The case was put off until Friday, when it will be picked up again.
