HARARE regional magistrate Clever Tsikwa last Friday lambasted a 21-year-old woman for allegedly tarnishing the image of her employer — a Seventh Day Adventist (SDA) church pastor — by filing rape charges against him after he reprimanded her over her immoral behaviour.
BY OUR SENIOR COURT REPORTER
Tsikwa made the remarks as he acquitted the pastor, Basil Michael Green of the rape charges levelled against him by his former maid.
Prosecutors had accused Green of raping the maid on September 20 this year at his Wilmington Park home in Harare.
The allegations against him were that he summoned the girl into the main house and asked her to assist him wash the dishes since his wife had gone to their rural home. When the woman complied, it was alleged Green raped her and later threatened to kill her if she disclosed the abuse.
Green, according to court papers, asked that they conduct a confession prayer so that God would forgive them for sinning.
The case was dismissed for lack of evidence after the woman and two State witnesses gave contradictory statements during trial.
Green’s acquittal followed an application for discharge by his lawyer, Simon Mupindu, at the close of the State case.
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Public prosecutor Tracy Mundanga later conceded the State case was weak.
During trial Green had told the court in his defence that the complainant had connived with her boyfriend to nail him after he reprimanded them against their wayward behaviour.
It also emerged during trial that on the same day the woman alleges she was raped, she reportedly told the pastor’s daughters while in a jovial mood, that she had ‘caught herself a big fish’ referring to a Ghanaian national who had proposed love to her and she hinted she wanted to dump her boyfriend.
