Durban, Jan 21: South African government will provide legal representation to a high court judge, who is in custody in Mumbai on the charge of raping a fellow woman delegate attending an anti-globalisation meet there. The South African High Commission in New Delhi has been asked to appoint two Indian lawyers for judge Siraj Desai and the 26-year-old woman who accused him of raping her, foreign affairs department spokesperson Ronnie Mamoepa said. "We will have to wait for the law to take its course. We cannot be seen to be intervening with their (India's) judicial system, just as much we would not want anybody to intervene with our judicial system," Mamoepa said. Fifty three-year-old Desai, a judge in Cape Town High Court was arrested on Sunday after the woman filed a complaint with police charging him with raping her. Meanwhile, people in South Africa have questioned the credibility of the charge, doubting the actions of the woman's husband in releasing the information to the media only minutes after his wife informed him about it, reports said.

Newspapers in Johannesburg expressed concern about South Africa's image abroad.
"We shudder to think how people in the eastern part of the world regard the morality of South African men," the citizen newspaper said.

Most papers have also carried editorials, expressing alarm at the immoral aspect of the incident.

Bureau Report