Published by the government of Zimbabwe
25 July 2007
Harare — AN 11-year-old girl, who was a complainant in a rape case, fell victim to a "Good Samaritan" police officer who offered her a bed in his home but ended up raping her four times, a Tsholotsho magistrate heard yesterday.
Barnabas Mazani appeared before Mr Toindepi Zhou charged with four counts of rape. Mazani was not formally charged but was remanded in custody to today for a ruling on his bail application.
Mazani (34), who was attached to the Victim Friendly Section at Sipepa Police Station in Tsholotsho, belatedly engaged lawyer Mr Kenneth Lubimbi, of Lubimbi and Partners, to handle his bail application.
The prosecutor-in-charge at Tsholotsho magistrates' courts, Mr Fritz Madida, told the court that on the night of June 12, Mazani went into the Officer-in-Charge (Crime)'s office where the rape victim was sleeping.
It is the State case that he ordered her to wake up and led her to the police residential quarters.
On arrival at a house he shares with a colleague, who was away at the time, he ordered her to sleep on the fellow policeman's bed in the sitting room.
He allegedly raped her three times before retiring to his own bed.
At dawn, the State further alleges, Mazani went back to the sitting room and allegedly raped the girl again before taking her back to the offices at about 4am.
A female police officer had the night before seen the complainant go to bed in the office, but later found her missing and concluded that she had been allowed to go back home.
She was, however, surprised to find her back in the office the following morning.
It was on being asked where she had spent the night, that the girl spilled the beans.
Investigations led to Mazani's arrest.
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