SOUTH AFRICA: A claim by a South African teenager that he was kidnapped from his white family and raised in a black township has fallen into doubt when a magistrate said yesterday it was unlikely he was from a white family.
The case of the blond youth, who goes by the name "Happy Sindane", has sparked international media coverage since welfare authorities took in the pale-skinned 16-year-old last week.
"The court finds on the balance of probability that it is unlikely that Happy came from a white family," the magistrate, Mr Martinus Kruger, said after the youth made a brief court appearance in Bronkhorstspruit, east of Pretoria. "It looks like he was never with a white family, even from birth, although Happy alleges this."
A justice department spokesman said it was likely he had a white or coloured father and a black mother and DNA tests would determine the real position. Sindane showed up at a Bronkhorstspruit police station on May 19th, saying he had been kidnapped by a black domestic worker when he was aged six.
A white Pretoria couple who said Sindane might be their son who disappeared in 1992 after going to a café to play video games have submitted their blood for DNA testing.
The magistrate said Sindane was a child in need of care and would stay in a place of safety while the case was investigated. He adjourned the case to June 17th.