'He pulled my vagina from his pocket' - ritual victim says

A woman who had her private parts mutilated by a man believed to be a ritualist in South Africa said the man pulled her private virgina from his pocket and said now he has the nice thing with him  before returning i it into his pocket.

On Tuesday Mapula Malemone, 29, who is now wheelchair-bound, told the Pretoria News of her ordeal shortly after the man who had mutilated her - the father of her children - appeared in court for attempting to murder her.

Phuti Malema, 34, has already pleaded guilty to charges of attempted murder. But in the Moretele Magistrate's Court on Tuesday, he insisted that the knife recovered at the crime scene was not the one used by him. He claimed it had been changed by the police.

Despite having pleaded guilty to attempted murder relating to the attack on his former girlfriend, his focus centred on the knife found at the scene. He said it was not the one he had used to cut out his girlfriend's private parts.

He was remanded to August 5 when evidence of the first police officers who attended the scene will be heard and he is in custody.

 Malemone, recalled how she awoke in a pool of blood on the morning of April 20 last year after Malema had mutilated her.

She said the attack happened while she was asleep. Their three children – a boy, 8, and two girls aged 6 and 4 – were asleep next to her.

"I don't know how or why he did this to me. I just woke up to hear my children and neighbours screaming out loud. I couldn't even speak or move," she said.

"The next thing, he came back and pulled out my vagina from his pocket and told me he now had my 'nice thing' with him and then he licked it.

"Thereafter, he put it back in his pocket and went on to boil water, telling me he was going to kill me," recalled Malemone.

It is unknown what happened to her genitals subsequent to the brutal attack which caused extensive injuries which have left her in a wheelchair.