Zimpapers Logo

Mashudu Netsianda Senior Court Reporter
A former policeman who allegedly turned his late brother’s daughter into a sex slave before impregnating her and facilitating an abortion to conceal the crime applied for discharge at the close of the state case.
Stanley Mhembere, 44, a former police officer who was stationed at Ross Camp in Bulawayo, allegedly committed the crime between 2001 and 2005 in exchange for paying the victim’s school fees and buying her uniforms.

Mhembere through his lawyer, Kucaca Phulu, on Friday applied for discharge at the close of the state case. He disputed the victim and other key witnesses’ evidence, arguing that it was fraught with “inconsistencies and blatant lies.”

“Your Worship, in this particular case, there is evidential basis for treating the evidence by the victim with suspicion. The alleged first rape is said to have occurred in 2001, the second one during the same year and the third one two years later while the fourth and fifth one in 2005, but surprisingly throughout those five years there was no police report and no suspicion. The delay in making a police report therefore raises suspicion assuming that the victim was indeed raped.

“There was no indication until 2006 when the matter is said to have come to light. From 2005 until 2014, there was no police report and it is common cause that this whole matter was pre-planned. For 11 years, the accused did not hear about these allegations but only to hear them during a family meeting in Mahatshula,” argued Phulu.

The lawyer also queried the statement made by the victim at the police station, saying it contradicted her testimony in court.
“The evidence of the witness is laden with lies and inconsistencies. In her statement to the police, the victim stated that the accused raped her and threatened to shoot her with his pistol if ever she told anyone about the rape. However, under cross-examination, she retracted her statement and said the accused did not produce a gun at all.

“When she was asked about the issue of the gun, she told the court that she only saw the firearm in the accused’s drawer sometime back before the alleged rape.

“Throughout the evidence given in court there is a new chain of discredited reasons and there is also an attempt to say accused tried to poison the victim by giving her porridge with peanut butter. In fact, the victim earlier told the court that she was only given some concoction so that she could abort to terminate the pregnancy, which is a tendency by the victim to create stories,” argued Phulu.

He said the victim was not a credible witness and her evidence should be treated with caution.
“I submit that the accused be discharged and not be put on defence because a conviction cannot be obtained in the witness’s evidence,” said the lawyer.

Mberewere deferred the case to Friday during which the state will make its submissions.
Prosecuting, Trust Muduma said Mhembere took over the custody of the girl from her widowed sister-in-law in Gweru saying he wanted to pay her school fees as she had passed her Grade Seven.

The court heard how Mhembere was exposed when his niece’s 26-year-old boyfriend questioned why she was not a virgin when they had sex and she narrated how she was abused.

The boyfriend broke up with her and Mhembere’s family was notified of the matter and after discussing the issue they resolved to make a police report leading to the accused’s arrest.

The victim alleged that she was raped at Ross Camp, Khumalo and Northend suburbs where she lived with her uncle and his family after her father’s death.