A 50-year-old police constable identified as Shakemore Muzanechita was on Saturday May 29, arraigned before Karoi magistrate Godwills Mavenge for allegedly raping a 30-year-old breastfeeding woman.
The junior Zimbabwean police officer stationed at ZRP Karoi Urban, was charged with rape as defined in Section 65 of the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act Chapter 9:23 after he sexually assaulted the victim who had gone to the police station to report a gender-based violence (GBV) case.
It was gathered that on Thursday, May 27 at around 8 pm, the woman went to ZRP Karoi Urban charge office to file a report of physical abuse against her husband and found Muzanechita on duty.
After listening to the complaint, the policeman never recorded the matter in police books. He instead asked the woman who had her breastfeeding baby strapped on her back to accompany him to her residence to arrest her husband.
Upon arriving the woman’s house in Chiedza suburb, they failed to locate the wanted person.Muzanechita who told the woman to leave the one-and-half-year-old baby behind as they went on a search for her husband at nearby beer-drinking spots, was said to have insisted on her accompanying him on the hunt, resulting in her giving in to the request.
While en route to a different drinking joint after they failed to locate her husband in the first one they went to, Muzanechita proposed love to the woman who spurned his advances. He reportedly said he will “thoroughly deal with her abusive husband” if she has sex with him, an offer she also turned down.
He then reportedly grabbed the complainant’s hand, dragged her off the tarred road and led her into a bush near Tafara Primary School. The shocked woman failed to shout for help but only tried to stop her assailant by revealing she was HIV positive, to which Muzanechita replied he had condoms.
The policeman then went on to have sex with the woman without her consent. The court further heard that while still raping the woman, Muzanechita removed the condom and continued the act without protection.
After committing the crime, the police officer offered his victim shelter at his residence in Chikangwe but the woman refused arguing she had left her children unattended.
Muzanechita reportedly escorted the woman to her house. He was arrested on Friday May 28, after the distraught lady narrated her ordeal to a co-tenant who advised her to file a police report.
Magistrate Mavenge remanded him in custody till Monday May 31, even after his lawyer, Unite Saizi of Saizi Law Chambers applied for his release.
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