Johannesburg- Archbishop Steven Bafana Zondo of Rivers of Living Waters Church will go on trial for 10 counts of rape at the Pretoria High Court tomorrow on the back foot.
This after the Pretoria High Court twice dismissed his application to force the Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities (CRL Commission) to hand over the transcripts, audio recordings or visuals of the testimonies of the witnesses or victims who accused him of the rapes.
The applications were dismissed twice in September.
But on Friday, National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) officials delivered the recordings to the offices of Zondo’s lawyers, just two days before the start of the trial.
Zondo’s lawyer, Jeffrey Rahlagane of JL Rahlagane Attorneys, confirmed that they had received the transcripts on Friday.
“They are incomplete, though, but we cannot comment any further because the matter is sub judice,” he said.
Zondo said in the court documents that he wanted the transcripts to prepare for his trial and that it was his constitutional right to have access to the testimonies of the witnesses.
“I’m unable to properly prepare for my defence for a criminal trial. The charges against me are of a very serious nature. Some of the charges, I’m advised, carry the possible imposition of sentences of life imprisonment upon conviction,” read the papers.
He argued that he would be prejudiced if he did not have access to the transcripts as the NPA, which will prosecute the cases, had been given access to them by the CRL Commission.
But on both occasions, the court dismissed his applications.
Zondo found himself on the wrong side of the law after seven women accused him of rape and sexual assault on separate occasions at different venues.
According to the indictments, Zondo repeatedly raped his relative in June 1980 at her Sebokeng house and gave her sweets to keep her quiet.
He also allegedly raped six women at his church between 2013 and 2015.
He is also charged with forcing another woman to perform oral sex on him and defeating the ends of justice by trying to bribe one of the victims with R25 000 to drop the charges against him.
Zondo released the following statement to Sunday World ahead of his appearance on Monday:
“First and foremost the justice system, is, in their nature, impartial and unbias towards a particular set of beliefs, program and generally must be above reproach or any form of partiality and partisanship.
How this case has been handled follows the pattern of how the charges were fabricated with pure lust for slander, character assassination and a penchant pursuance of destroying a black man.
Come to think of it, the trial was deliberately set down to the month of August because the plan was for the alleged victims to spit venom in this period where the struggle against GBV is at its peak, in a way, to reversly parade the accused through a public trial, note that many attacks, killings and mutinies were borne out of malicious and unsubstantiated rumours which of course would be proven to be false at a later stage, however the damage would have been done already.
Secondly, the state and the prosecution agreed that we need to first have a pre-trial and the judge made a ruling thereof that a pre-trial must happen before the commencement of the actual trial. Immediately after the ruling, days later the judge changed his mind and declared that we will no longer have a pre-trial and this decision is made outside of court. Isn’t it that an order or rather a resolution of the court can not be rescinded unless the same court reconvenes or maybe a higher court nullifies.
Thirdly, I have learned that the defence were denied access to the transcripts of the CRL Commission hearings relating to the same case where the same alleged victims made statement under oath. Isn’t it ironic
The prosecution went as far as detailing how the CRL Commission transcripts will affect the credibility of their witnesses and complainants. As a result the court dismisses the defence’s application to access those records under the auspices of the matter not being urgent. My mind tells me that this matters are interrelated because it is the same matter only in a different institution.
I, personally believe that the accused is treated unfairly for the longest of time possible in this instance by the system. The courts of this country I believe will be impartial.
As to how the prosecution came to a conclusion about how the CRL Commission transcripts will affect their case is beyond me unless they have access to them, studied them and concluded on how they will affect their case and therefore are working very hard not for this evidence to be admissible in court.
I am frantically looking forward to this trial because it will finally bring to a close all this matters and the accused shall emerge victorious.
I am not a law expert, I however will learn a lot from this on-going trial, with such a huge interest from various sects within the global community, I am eagerly anticipating the low down, in the mean time let’s go to RLW and have some fun.”
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