Freedom Day quickly turned tragic for South Africa’s LGBT community, following the murder of a gay man who was stabbed and brutally assaulted with a pole. 27-year-old Tebogo Mokhoto was killed in a bloody attack on the East Rand, during which he was anally raped with a wooden object.

According to Matshidiso Mofokeng from Vosloo Activators, a community based LGBTI group, Mokhoto returned home after a night out to find his house being burgled by a group of men.

The four men, two of whom it’s believed he knew, then killed the young man; cutting his throat and stabbing him multiple times. At some point he had a stick or wooden pole of some kind shoved into his rectum.

Mofokeng further intimated  that one of the suspects later told his girlfriend what he had done. She in turn called the police to report the murder. In a shocking claim, Mofokeng said that police ignored the report and failed to investigate the crime or visit Mokhoto’s home for two days.

It was allegedly only after the suspect turned himself in to the police that, on the 5th of April, officers went to the scene of the crime. They found Mokhoto’s decomposing body shoved under his bed.

Four men, two of whom are said to be underage, have since been arrested for the murder. They will appear in court on the 3rd and 4th of May, with a separate trial expected for the alleged killers who are minors.

Unbelievably, Mofokeng further claims that police did not take the wooden item that was inserted into the victim from the scene of the crime as evidence.

Fearing police incompetence, activists have taken their own pictures of the scene in the hope that these could be used as evidence in the trial.  While Mokhoto’s murder appears to have been initiated as a result of a break-in, Mofokeng believes that the victim’s rape indicates that his sexuality undoubtedly played a part in his death.

Sourced from mambaonline