‘Dead’ rapist jailed 15 years

A MAN from Tsholotsho who raped and infected a nine-year-old girl with HIV has been sentenced to an effective 15 years in jail.

The 52-year-old man appeared before Bulawayo Regional Magistrate Mr Joseph Mabeza facing charges of raping his cousin.

He pleaded guilty and asked the magistrate to sentence him to six years in prison.

“May the court give me six years in prison because I’m as good as dead. I’m not healthy and I am HIVpositive. I have a wife and three children to look after,” he said.

The Magistrate said the rapist deserved an effective 15 years in jail.

“It is really sad that you raped your own cousin, your aunt’s daughter. Now the child is going to live with the virus because of you. Don’t worry about your HIV status, you’re going to meet people in jail who are also HIV-positive,” said Mr Mabeza.

“I wonder how you were feeling when you were sexually abusing someone who is 43 years younger than you. Instead of protecting your relative, you decided to rape her. You really need to go to jail for quite some time.”

Prosecuting, Mr Tinashe Dzipe said sometime in May last year at around 3PM, the complainant was left in the man’s custody by her grandmother.

Mr Dzipe said a few minutes after her grandmother left, the man started to demand sex from the complainant who refused.

He said the man then raped the girl and promised to give her some money if she did not reveal the matter to anyone.

Mr Dzipe said the complainant told her brother about the rape, but he did not believe her and advised her not to report the matter to the police.

He said the matter came to light sometime in November 2015 when the juvenile tested HIV positive during an HIV outreach programme at school.

Mr Dzipe said in July this year, the complainant revealed that she had been raped and her grandmother took her to the police station to report the matter leading to the man’s arrest. — @cynthiamthembo1