A 23-year-old man from Madombidzha, Raymond Malinge Sadiki, was found guilty of rape in the Magistrate’s Court in Tshilwavhusiko on Friday, 4 July. The case against him stems from an incident which took place on April 4, 2006, when he raped a policewoman. He was sentenced to 23 years’ imprisonment.

Sadiki also pleaded guilty to three other charges, namely housebreaking, attempted rape, and malicious damage to property. These offences were committed on the night of May 27 last year while he was out on bail on the rape charge. Sadiki pleaded not guilty to all the charges throughout the trial, but on Friday morning, right before the trial recommenced, he decided to change his plea to guilty. The state then pointed out that he had been found guilty on a previous charge of housebreaking in 2005, when he received a sentence of R2 500 or 18 months in jail.

The defendant’s lawyer, Mr Kenny Sebaka, argued in mitigation that the accused is a young man with two small children from two different mothers. At the time of sentencing, he was gainfully employed at a local company. Sebaka indicated that the interests of justice, society and the accused had to be taken into account; he argued that too harsh a sentence would break the accused and that his children would suffer because of their father’s deeds. He expressed certainty that the accused would be rehabilitated when he had served his sentence. He added that one positive aspect about the rape was that the victim showed no signs of having contracted HIV or any other STD. He concluded by indicating that the accused had shown remorse for his deeds and pleaded with the court to balance the various parties’ interests.

In her response, the state prosecutor, Ms Beauty Madaba, pointed out the seriousness of the offences. She indicated that people could not feel safe in their houses at night because of people like Sadiki and that he was a danger to society because he reserved the right to break into people’s houses and threaten and violate them. She pointed out that he was very daring in his crimes because he did not hesitate to rape a policewoman, not caring whether she was armed or not. In the case of the second charge, that of housebreaking, it was a blessing in disguise that the old lady whom he intended to rob was able to chase him off. The victim in the case of the third charge managed to convince him to let her fetch a condom when he made it clear that he intended to rape her. Somehow, she managed to escape.

Madaba further argued that the fact that the accused’s children would suffer because of his deeds was mitigated by the fact that their mothers received the state’s child grant, which meant that they would not starve. She found no compelling evidence for a light sentence and said that she would seek 15 years for count 1, three years for count 2, eight years for count three and a suspended sentence for count 4.