Prosecution’s failure in rape case is a shameful fiasco
Rape is a very difficult crime to prove in a court of law. More often than not, it is a classic case of “she said, he said”, usually between people well known to each other or at the very least acquainted.
Given the nature of the crime – a violent attack – public sentiment, and rightly so, tends to lie with the victim. It is the right thing to do that when a woman cries rape, we all should believe her. The onus then shifts to the police to prove, with the help of the prosecution team that the crime did take place.
We are hammering on this on the back of the not-guilty verdict returned by the honourable Eastern Cape Division of the High Court in Gqeberha in the rape and human trafficking case of charismatic televangelist Pastor Timothy Omotoso, a senior pastor of the Jesus Dominion International and two co-accused Lusanda Sulani and Zukiswa Sitho.
The Nigerian clergyman had been on trial on and off since his arrest in Gqeberha in 2017, and the matter had to be started afresh as the process was marred by misconduct by the prosecution.
The charges Omotoso faced included a mind-boggling 30 counts of rape, yet in the end he walked away scot-free in what appears for all intents and purposes a miscarriage of justice.
Judge Irma Schoeman, who presided over the trial, reportedly said it was not that she did not believe what the witnesses told the court – of the drug abuse, alcoholism and the debauchery that went down at the establishment – but the problem was that the state failed dismally to prove beyond reasonable doubt its case.
And therein lies the rub. Emotionally charged as cases of this nature might be, a court of law is charged with dealing with good old hard facts and evidence. Sentiments that eventually carry the mood and outcomes of matters in the court of public opinion don’t count in the realm in which Judge Schoeman operates.
Reams of articles published in the wake of the acquittal of Omotoso have sought to find answers in response to the question of what went wrong. Many a finger will indeed point to the faults and failures of the prosecution in this case.
We can’t fault such accusations. That a supposedly competent prosecutions authority failed to make even one of the 30 odd charges of rape it brought against someone stick, speaks – in our book – to the hopeless incompetence of those tasked to seek justice for the likes of
Cherryl Zondi, the brave young woman who took the stand to testify against a powerful figure and risked her life. Lest we forget that a key state witness in the trial was shot dead during the trial.
It all spells disaster, and undoes the victories society has made in the fight against the scourge of rape in a country where it is claimed a woman is raped every 17 minutes and gender-based violence against women and children is of pandemic proportions.
Zondi is shattered, and needs our protection, love and assurance as nation that we are with her, and many others like her. But it will be words that simply ring hollow if the police, the NPA and everyone concerned cannot spare us from another horror show a la the Omotoso case. The vulnerable among us deserve better.
