Former Central Bank governor's advisor, Munyaradzi Kereke is heading back to jail to finish his rape sentence after roaming free since August 2021 when he was granted ZW$500 000 bail pending appeal.
The Supreme Court Friday dismissed his appeal in its entirety sealing his fate.
The former legislator was jailed 10 years effective by a Harare magistrate in 2016 for raping his then 9-year old niece at gun point and had served part of his sentence when he was granted bail pending appeal against both conviction and sentencing.
He was serving ten years effective after he was caged by Harare magistrate, Noel Mupeiwa, in 2016.
Justice Mwayera of the Supreme Court freed him pending appeal.
Kereke was found guilty of raping one of his nieces, while he was acquitted on the count of indecent assault purportedly committed against another older niece.
He had maintained that in convicting him of rape, the magistrate's court erred and misdirected itself on the several grounds that he proposed in the notice of appeal he filed before the High Court.
But Charles Warara, who was representing the victim proved that Kereke raped the minor at gunpoint and she did not tell anyone about it.
He said the fact that Mupeiwa accepted that he would rape someone while his wife was in the same house left a lot to be desired, as it was impossible.
Kereke's legal battle has had many twists until he was convicted after his case had been parked at the Prosecutor General's office for six years.
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His case was the first to be privately prosecuted, with Warara setting precedence in the history of Zimbabwe.
Kereke's case had to proceed through private prosecution after then Prosecutor-General, Johannes Tomana, refused to prosecute him, claiming there was no evidence linking the then Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) senior official to the offence.
After his conviction, Kereke never rested. He tried every way possible to secure freedom.
At one time, he tried his luck claiming there are changed circumstances, probably banking on the change of government after November 2017.
Kereke argued that President Emmerson Mnangagwa's government would understand that his incarceration was politically motivated.
But Warara complained that Kereke had already benefited from the reduction of his jail term, which was allegedly slashed by the Zimbabwe Prisons and Correctional Services (ZPCS) and had his classification altered from being a dangerous criminal to a mere class C criminal.
The victim's guardian lawyer also challenged the ZPCS to justify why Kereke's sentence was tampered with.
