South Africa: Four teens get bail over gang rape of mentally disabled girl

Four teenage boys accused in a brutal videotaped gang rape of a mentally disabled girl in South Africa have been released on $67 bail, CNN reported.

The boys feared for their safety and would not be return to their homes because of community anger, lawyer Carina Coetzee told reporters outside court.

"They did get bail of R500 each and they were placed under house arrest. They will change communities… They are just going to move for their own safety," Coetzee said.

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Coetzee said the charges included paying a teenager for sexual intercourse, using children for child pornography, and possession, creation and distribution of child pornography, News24 reported.

However, she said, charges against them did not include rape but rather "other offenses under the Sexual Offenses Act," and "in all fairness to them we have put the minimum we have against them."

According to CNN, a South African court has already determined that three of the four — aged 17 — will face full prosecution, but not the fourth suspect, a 13-year-old.

South African law presumes children up to the age of 14 to be "criminally incapable."

The four were arrested in Dobsonville, Soweto on April 17. Initially, seven young men between the ages of 14 and 20 were arrested in connection with the girl's attack, video recorded on the girl's own cell phone.

The video went viral after being posted on the internet on April 18.

South Africa has one of the highest rates of rape in the world. A 2009 study found that one in four South African men had admitted to rape, and most cases are never prosecuted.

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