A final year medical student at Stellenbosch University was arrested on Thursday following claims of assault on a fellow medical student, Lebo Masinga.
Masinga says the assault took place on the grounds of Stellenbosch University’s Tygerberg Campus at the Ubuntu House residence on Friday 4 July when she refused to have sex with the accused.
According to an eyewitness to the incident, the accused proceeded to assault Masinga physically and tried to throw her off the balcony.
Eyewitnesses alerted campus security, whom Masinga says, merely asked her to “be more careful”. Masinga says no arrests were made at the time, however, 48hrs later the university moved the accused from campus residency to private accommodation allegedly provided by the university.
According to Ayesha Abouzeid, an eyewitness to the assault, the move was done only after students requested that the accused be removed from campus residency. Abouzeid criticised the university for not being proactive when the incident was reported. She says it was up to her and other concerned students to make sure Masinga was doing ok after the incident.
The accused, a 26-year-old student originally from the Eastern Cape, was arrested on Thursday and will make his first court appearance on Friday, 10 July. He has been temporarily suspended pending a disciplinary investigation.
