Arrest after man caught with penis and scrotum

When 26-year-old Joel Ranoto was caught in possession of a penis and scrotum carried in a container it emerged they had been cut off a corpse at the B3 Funerals’ mortuary in Polokwane, South Africa. Ranoto made a brief appearance in the Polokwane Magistrate’s Court on Monday.

He was not asked to plead, and a visibly shocked magistrate Janine Ungerer released him on R1,000 (£58, $95) bail. “I hope you are innocent of this. Otherwise I would be very happy I am not you,” said Ungerer. She then postponed the case until March 18 for further investigations. Ranoto was arrested in Polokwane on Friday after a traditional healer to whom he had offered to sell the body parts alerted the police.



“We have charged him for violation of a corpse and possession of human body parts,” Polokwane police spokesman Captain Ntobeng Phala said. Ranoto, from Ga-Mashashane village, works for Telezaro Funeral Parlour, according to Phala. The chopping off of the genitals and Ranoto’s subsequent arrest left a grieving family at Ga-Semenya village outside Polokwane shocked and stranded.

Two tents had been erected for their relative’s funeral. A grave had been dug. But the corpse never arrived home on Friday. Later that night, police informed them that the corpse had been violated. Saturday’s funeral was postponed indefinitely. The deceased’s mother, Mosima, described the cutting off of her 60-year-old son’s genitals as shocking. “I can’t sleep at night. I have no appetite for food. We will never forgive him for what he did to us,” she said.