DNA tests will now be used to prove his parentage
Posted on 05/27/2003 2:56:41 PM PDT by yankeedame
Tuesday, 27 May, 2003
South African herd boy 'not white'
From the BBC On-Line:
A South African judge has raised doubts over the credibility of a teenager who says he spent six years as the captive of a black family. The boy, known as Happy Sindane, says he grew up with a white family and was kidnapped by their domestic servant.
He speaks only the Ndebele language but says he remembers his parents speaking Afrikaans.
But magistrate Martinus Kruger said this story was probably not true.
"The court finds on the balance of probability that it is unlikely that Happy Sindane came from a white family," he said after Sindane made a brief court appearance in Bronkhorstspruit, east of Pretoria.
"It looks like he was never with a white family, even from birth, although Happy alleges this," he said.
Hoaxes
The court also ruled that Sindane was 16 and not 18 as he had claimed.
This makes him a legal minor and Mr Kruger ruled that he will stay in a place of safety while the case was investigated.
"He likely has a white or coloured father and a black mother. DNA tests will determine what the real position is," said Heinrich Augustyn of the justice department.
The well publicised case has led to a flood of claims by people who say they are his parents, however police believe that many of them are hoaxes.
Police have taken blood tests from a white couple, Jan-Hendrik and Sarie Botha, who claim that Sindane may be their son, Jannie, who has been missing since 1992.
Meanwhile, The Sowetan newspaper reports that a black woman, Tozi Ben, says Sindane may be the child of her cousin who had an affair with a white farmer.
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From the Sydney Morning Herald:
'Slave boy' may not have white family
A South African teenager's claim that he was kidnapped from his white family and raised in a black township fell into doubt when a judge said it was unlikely he was from a white family.
The case of the blond youth, who goes by the name "Happy Sindane", has sparked international media coverage since welfare authorities took in the pale-skinned 16-year-old last week.
"The court finds on the balance of probability that it is unlikely that Happy came from a white family," Magistrate Martinus Kruger told Reuters after Sindane made a brief court appearance in Bronkhorstspruit, east of Pretoria on Monday.
"It looks like he was never with a white family, even from birth, although Happy alleges this," said Mr Kruger.
Justice Department spokesman Heinrich Augustyn said: "He likely has a white or coloured father and a black mother. DNA tests will determine what the real position is."
Sindane showed up at a Bronkhorstspruit police station on May 19, saying he had been kidnapped by a black domestic worker when he was six years old.
A white Pretoria couple who said Sindane might be their son who disappeared in 1992 after going to a cafe to play video games have submitted their blood for DNA testing, police said.
Mr Augustyn told a news conference the couple had met Sindane and said he looked different from pictures that led them to think he was their son.
Sindane's hair appeared darker than in published photos. He wore a jacket, T-shirt and jeans and showed little emotion as he sat in court.
Mr Kruger said Sindane was a child in need of care and would stay in a place of safety while the case was investigated. He adjourned the case to June 17.
Media reports have quoted Sindane saying he had only a "movie-like" memory of his previous life, saying he recalled his family spoke Afrikaans and lived in Johannesburg.
Sindane said the family's maid handed him to a couple who took him to a rural area where he lived for the next 12 years, eventually with an older man he referred to as his grandfather.
He said he was forced to leave school to herd animals and sometimes had to spend all night out looking for stray beasts.
The youth, who has only a smattering of Afrikaans, said he also worked for a while on an orange farm before turning to police to escape what he said was abuse.
Reuters
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