Windhoek — Residents of Okuryangava in Katutura took to the streets to denounce the bail application of an Angolan pastor who allegedly raped a 16-year-old girl on the altar on which unleavened bread and holy wine is consecrated during communion.

The legal age for sexual consent in Namibia is sixteen years.

It is alleged that the Angolan pastor approached the girl in May after a church service and told her to take a "walk" with him to the Soweto Market, where he bought her lunch and a cheap new phone for N$275.

After he bought the mobile hand-set for the school girl, the pastor continued to enjoy her company in conversation until he invited her to his friend's corrugated-zinc shack where he forced the young lady to have unprotected sex with him.

That happened early in June and by the middle of June the girl again decided to attend a church service, following which the pastor convinced her to remain after the church service and proceeded to rape her on the altar, it is alleged.

Sources allege that the pastor had intercourse with the girl on three separate occasions, twice on the altar and once in a shack belonging to a female friend of the pastor. Details emerging from the case indicate that the pastor's wife tried to have the case withdrawn by offering the father of the victim payment of N$10 000. The offer was turned down firmly.

According to the girl's father, who cannot be named to protect her identity, he (the father) only came to learn about the alleged rape when he saw his daughter with a new cellphone, which immediately piqued his curiosity.

"I decided to approach her and asked her where she got the cellphone from. She answered that it was her cousin's phone. The next day I decided to go to a certain Nakanyala's house to find out it if it was true that my daughter got a phone from her cousin," related the victim's father.

He said the cousin denied giving his daughter the phone. The father said he returned to his daughter and questioned her again about the phone she was using, knowing in his mind she could not afford a phone.

It was then that the girl confessed telling her father how she got the cellphone from the pastor, who now faces charges of rape.

She also told the father that they had unprotected sex on three separate occasions, including sexual intercourse on the sacred altar.

The father who was shocked by the confession rushed to the police to report the matter.

He approached a Sergeant Nghilinganye, who interrogated the victim. She told the officer that she got the phone in exchange for unprotected sex with the man of the cloth.

Following the confession and the interview with Sergeant Nghilinganye the father laid a charge of rape against the pastor.

The police went to look for the pastor and found him in church preaching and arrested him. The accused appeared in the Katutura Magistrate's Court for his bail application yesterday, which was also his second time in court. Yesterday, the father of the victim testified that he was against the accused being granted bail.

But the suspect was granted bail of N$3 000 and the case was postponed to August 22.