ZIMBABWE
Bulawayo 24
by Mashudu Netsianda
A BULAWAYO pastor, who turned a congregant, 16, into a sex slave and allegedly infected her with HIV and genital warts while claiming to be driving out a death demon that wanted to kill her father, has been sentenced to 30 years in jail.
Greatness Tapfuma, 33, of Cowdray Park who is the founder of Kingdom Rulers International Church broke into tears soon after Bulawayo regional magistrate Chrispen Mberewere convicted him on two counts of rape.
His followers who had come to court in solidarity with their leader immediately joined him in weeping following the verdict. Tapfuma’s emissaries, the court heard, attempted to bribe his victim with a house, a car or cash so she could drop the charges against him. The pastor, who was recently acquitted of raping two other congregants will, however, serve an effective 25 years in jail after five years of the sentence were suspended on condition that he does not within that period commit a similar crime.
Magistrate Mberewere, in his judgment, ruled that although Tapfuma’s victim tested HIV positive, there was no evidence that the pastor is the one who infected her. “I don’t find that the victim was aware of her HIV status prior to the rape. She only became aware of it after the doctor who examined her recommended that she gets tested for HIV following genital warts. I, therefore dismiss the link between the victim’s HIV infection and the rape,” said the magistrate. – See more at: http://bulawayo24.com/News/Local/74688#sthash.k9bA2Efx.dpuf
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