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Leonard Ncube Victoria Falls Reporter
A RAPIST from Binga who could not give his correct age in court has a dentist to thank for a lighter sentence after the specialist determined that he could be a minor. Artwell Munsaka had claimed that he was 16 years old when he was arrested for allegedly raping a neighbour’s six-year-old daughter but prosecutors doubted his given age as he looked much older to them.
Munsaka did not have a birth certificate or any identification particulars.

Hwange regional magistrate Dambudzo Malunga referred Munsaka to a dentist to determine his age and the specialist said he was between 17 and 19 years old.

Munsaka of Mupande Village under Chief Sinampande was then sentenced to a wholly suspended two year-jail term.
He will also receive three strokes with a rattan cane to be administered by a Zimbabwe Prisons and Correctional Services officer.

The magistrate said the court used its discretion to sentence Munsaka as a juvenile because a specialist had placed his age on the boundary of being an adult and a minor.

“The accused had said he is aged 16 and the dentist said he is between 17 and 19 years old. The court exercised its discretion and treated you as a juvenile,” said Malunga.

Munsaka had pleaded guilty to rape.
The court was told how he pounced on the girl, who was playing a game of hide and seek with her friends in the evening on September 21 last year.

The girl was doing Grade Zero at Sinampande Primary School at the time.
“The complainant was playing hide and seek with her friends at about 7PM near a neighbour’s homestead. When she went to hide, the accused followed her whereupon he lifted her up and laid her behind a bush facing upwards. He then raped her once,” said the prosecutor Tawanda Sigauke.

The complainant reported the rape to her grandmother who then accompanied her to the police the following morning leading to Munsaka’s arrest.