HARARE – The complainant in Prophetic Healing and Deliverance Ministries Walter Magaya rape case has written a second letter querying the Prosecutor-General office’s reluctance to acknowledge her decision to voluntarily withdraw the charge.
The alleged Magaya rape victim — a Masters student at the Midlands State University — said she has served her letter to the deputy Prosecutor-General, national director of public prosecutions, chief public prosecutor, Commissioner-General of police, officer commanding Law and Order, clerk of court, Harare Magistrates Court and Magaya’s lawyers Rubaya and Chatambudza.
“It seems as if you have not taken heed of my clarion call that I have withdrawn the rape complaint. I was in the Magistrates’ Court today and was surprised your representative, one (chief public prosecutor) Michael Mugabe, insisted that a decision had been taken to proceed and prosecute the rape case in question, yet I have already withdrawn it,” reads the letter date-stamped December 1.
She queried how the National Prosecuting Authority would proceed with an allegation that she has confirmed as “false.”
“It is my understanding that as the complainant, I am in a position to indicate my decision relating to the matter. There cannot possibly be a rape case where I, as the complainant, have said the complaint was false and was never raped by the accused person,” she said.
She further emphasised that she no longer wanted anything to do with the matter again.
“If the matter proceeds in the manner proposed by your office that might not come out well given that I have already withdrawn this case.
“Kindly note that I was never interfered with neither am I being unduly influenced because I am an independent woman who has decided to tell the truth.”
The issue to have Magaya’s case withdrawn from the courts first became a concern on November 15 when the presiding magistrate Vakayi Chikwekwe found withdrawal affidavits slipped into his office with no one to account for their delivery.
In those documents, she claimed that she was being frustrated with threats from unnamed individuals who wanted to shoot her if she did not testify in a manner that would nail Magaya.
Chikwekwe then noted in court that he could not comment on the documents as they had not been procedurally presented before him.
Subsequent to the court’s decision, she followed proper procedure and served relevant parties withdrawal affidavits on November 17 and attached a letter, saying the decision was made at her own volition.
“I want to correct any misguided misconception or misguided inferences that the referred threats are the prime cause of the withdrawal. Far from it, this withdrawal is motivated by my own free will and volition without any undue influence having been brought to bear,” she said.
However, when the case kicked off before Chikwekwe on Wednesday, Mugabe sought to have Magaya indicted for trial at the High Court and did not mention anything about the withdrawal request.
His move was objected by Advocate Thabani Mpofu who has since assumed Magaya’s agency. Mpofu argued that it was an infringement of his client’s rights to ignore that the alleged victim has asserted that she had lied and wanted to withdraw the accusations.
“The State’s intention is understood but however, it is tainted because it is not in accordance with the law and liberty guarantee as set out in the Constitution,” Mpofu said.
“We are aware of two things that the State has been advised by the complainant, that she does not wish to pursue the complaint and advice that the accusations are false.”
The magistrate’s ruling was that the alleged rape victim did not have powers to influence the court’s decision.
He said the State had a constitutional mandate to determine the course of events but gave the green light to Magaya to apply for referral of his case to the Constitutional Court.-Dailynews
