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Trish Mukwazo, trishmukwazo515@gmail.com
A 37-year-old artisanal miner from Janjanja Village in Lupane has been sentenced to 27 years imprisonment for assaulting, raping and robbing a 20-year-old woman and justifying his actions as revenge for theft.
He will, however, serve 25 years effectively after Bulawayo regional magistrate, Dambudzo Malunga, suspended two years on condition that he doesn’t commit a similar crime in the next five years.
On July 28, Albert Ncube mistook the victim’s brother for a thief and launched a violent attack on a footpath in Umguza.
Armed with a stone, Ncube assaulted the innocent man, who managed to escape. However, Ncube’s rage did not subside and he turned his attention to the man’s sister, who was present at the scene.
He strangled her, dragged her into the bushes, raped her, and then stole her ZTE cellphone before fleeing the scene of the horrific crime.
Although Ncube denied all charges, claiming the allegations were false, Malunga ultimately convicted him based on the strength of the State’s evidence.
“The offender committed not one but three heinous crimes. He raped a vulnerable woman aged 20. His actions portrayed extreme cruelty. This was a planned and premeditated offence because he believed the victim’s brother had stolen from him,” said Malunga.
In mitigation, Ncube submitted that he is a married man with three children who depend on him as their breadwinner.
The prosecutor, Owen Mugari, detailed how Ncube committed the first offence on July 28 at around 4pm when he approached the victim and her brother, accusing the brother of theft.
“The brother expressed no knowledge of the accusations and Ncube reacted by hitting him with a stone on the head. He fled the scene leaving Ncube with his sister,” said Mugari.
The second offence occurred when Ncube pulled the victim by her braids into a bushy area and strangled her.
“Ncube proceeded to strip her naked and raped her,” Mugari said.
The final offence was committed when Ncube stole the victim’s ZTE cellphone after raping her and then ran away.
The matter came to light after the victim returned home and informed her mother, who escorted her to the police station to file a report leading to Ncube’s arrest.
The mother of the two victims told the court that her daughter sustained trauma and a fracture on the jawbone as a result of the attack. In aggravation, Mugari told the court that Ncube committed a very cruel and heinous offence by raping a vulnerable 20-year-old woman.
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