Wife of Danish man arrested over genitalia in freezer shot dead outside home in Lesotho
The 28-year-old woman, herself an alleged victim of Peter Frederiksen, led police to the discovery of the genitals of 21 women in his freezer, and would have been the star witness at his trial
Members of the ANC Women's League (ANCWL) hold placards after a bail hearing of Danish man Peter Frederiksen was postponed at the Bloemfontein court Photo: REUTERS/Siphiwe Sibeko
By Aislinn Laing, Johannesburg
4:39PM BST 22 Oct 2015
The wife of a Danish man arrested in South Africa after police found the genitals of 21 women in his freezer has been shot dead in an apparent assassination.
Anna Matseliso Molise, 28, from Lesotho, was due to be the state’s star witness against her 63-year-old husband, who was charged with sexual assault, intimidation, domestic violence and contravention of the Medicines Control Act following the gruesome discovery at the couple’s home in Bloemfontein last month.
She had been offered entry into the police witness protection programme but had declined it because she would not have been able to see her two children, aged two and four, who are in the custody of social services in Bloemfontein.
She was shot four times in the upper body outside her home in Lesotho’s capital Maseru on Tuesday night and died in hospital the following day.
“It’s heartbreaking,” said a police source close to the case. “She was a lovely woman.”
Peter Frederiksen, a gun dealer who is wanted in Denmark on charges of illegal firearm dealing, was arrested after he allegedly sedated Mrs Molise and mutilated her.
When police raided the couple’s home, they found 21 neatly-wrapped and labelled packages containing parts of women's clitorises, including one thought to belong to a seven-year-old girl, as well as surgical equipment, in a freezer.
They also discovered around 500 photographs of women, suggesting more potential victims.
Lieutenant General Mthandazo Ntlemeza, the national head of the directorate for priority crime investigation, said he was saddened by Miss Molise’s death.
“She was a key witness in our cases against Frederiksen. We suspected that something might happen and we offered her witness protection but she refused,” he said.
“Despite this setback we are committed to doing everything in our power to bring justice to the women who were alleged victims of the accused.”
Police have issued repeated appeals for other women they believe may have been mutilated to come forward, but until recently have heard nothing. Women's rights groups have raised fears some victims may be missing or dead.
On Thursday, Brigadier Hangwani Mulaudzi, from South Africa's special Hawks police unit, told The Telegraph two women have now come forward and detectives hoped it might encourage others to do so. “We believe these woman are alive,” he said. “We are still trying to ascertain whether they were strangers to him or not. “
He said police understood the victims’ reticence and would do everything they could to protect them. “There’s a probability that many of these women would not want to be identified because of the humiliation that they went through, unless they agreed to these so-called operations. We are working on the basis though that these were done illegally without the victims’ consent.”
Frederiksen also faces charges of causing grievous bodily harm to a minor, possessing and manufacturing child pornography and bigamy. He denies all the charges and claims everything found in his house belonged to his wife.
He is currently behind bars because he abandoned his bail application in October.
