African press review 20 April 2012

A rape case prompts soul-searching in South Africa. It's "Don't mention Toumani Touré" so far as Senegal's press is concerned. Where are Senegal's missing limousines? Not to mention the TV cameras?

South Africa's Mail and Guardian reports the postponement of the case of seven men, including two minors, accused of allegedly gang-raping a mentally handicapped teenager and video-taping the act.

The paper says the blaze of public outrage over the crime is shining new light on how under-age suspects and rape cases are handled.

The Johannesburg Star also examines the odious crime which it describes as the nation’s shame. The paper claims that the mother of a 17-year-old victim is relieved that her daughter is alive but she says she can’t live like this any more.

She told the newspaper it was not the first time that the girl has gone missing, claiming she had been raped more than once in the seven years that they have lived in Bramfischerville, Soweto.

There isn’t a word in this morning’s Malian and Senegalese papers about the arrival in Senegal Thursday of Mali's ousted president Amadou Toumani Touré.

The Senegalese president's office announced that Toumani Touré arrived Dakar shortly before midnight, accompanied by his entire family of about 15 people, and was taken to the Résidence Pasteur where high-ranking guests are lodged.

The presidential spokesperson says Senegal’s new Foreign Minister Alioune Badara Cissé flew to the Malian capital Bamako in the Senegalese presidential plane to pick them up. It was not immediately known if Touré would stay in Senegal or was just passing through.

A military source in Bamako had earlier said on condition of anonymity that Touré had departed with the agreement of coup leader Captain Amadou Haya Sanogo, after soldiers posted at the airport had refused to let him leave. The military source said troops had provoked panic when they fired in the air to oppose the former president's departure.

Also in Senegal, the controversy about the disappearance of over 600 cars from the presidential car park is growing. State security services have intensified a hunt for the missing limousines.

The news website sudonline.sn reports that a 72-hour ultimatum set by President Macky Sall for the return of the cars had expired without any of the looters coming forward.

Ex-president Abdoulaye Wade, who is accused of stealing 32 luxury vehicles when he left power, has reacted angrily, claiming he bought the cars with his own money.

Le Quotidien says investigations are also underway in Dakar, to find audiovisual equipment worth millions of CFA Francs that vanished from the radio television studio set up at state house by the Radio Television Senegalaise public broadcaster.