Times Of Swaziland: LAWYER SLAPPED WITH 3 RAPE, 2 SODV CHARGES

LAWYER SLAPPED WITH 3 RAPE, 2 SODV CHARGES
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Mbongiseni Ndzimandze on 23/09/2022 06:54:00


MBABANE – The well-known lawyer who allegedly sexually abused and impregnated
his children has been slapped with three charges of rape and two under the SODV
Act.
The attorney, who is 54-year-old, purportedly committed the offences over a
period 14 years, from 2006 to 2020. Under the Sexual Offences and Domestic
Violence (SODV) Act, the ‘learned friend’ is alleged to have maintained
sexual relationships with two minors from his area, aged 14 and 16. It has been
reliably gathered that the rape charges were accompanied by aggravating factors,
as he allegedly impregnated the minors and children were born as a result of
same.
He was arrested by members of the Royal Eswatini Police Service (REPS) yesterday
while at his parental homestead and is yet to appear in court. The Crown
yesterday obtained an order to extract his blood samples for further
investigations. He is currently detained at the Siteki Police Station and is
expected to make his first court appearance at Siteki Magistrates Court today.
Confirmed
Chief Police Information and Communications Officer Superintendent Phindile
Vilakati confirmed the arrest of the lawyer. The name of the lawyer will not be
disclosed pending his court appearance. The attorney is alleged to have
impregnated the children and forced them to take abortion tablets.
One of the allegedly abused children told the police that she tried to commit
suicide several times and another has been removed from the lawyer’s homestead
to a safe house. He allegedly took some of the children to the Republic of South
Africa (RSA) for abortion procedures once they fell pregnant.
It was also gathered that one of the children fell pregnant about four times.
One of his daughters, his niece and a helper, allegedly gave birth to the
attorney’s children after failed abortion attempts at his instance. The minors
were allegedly sexually abused by the lawyer for years, beginning from when some
of them were as young as 12 years old. One of the allegedly abused children now
works for one security services and another is a studying in SA. An
investigation by this publication had established that members of the community
where the attorney resides, who were aware of the alleged sexual abuse
experienced by the children in the hands of their father, were enraged that
nothing was seemingly being done to the lawyer.
The community members were said to be contemplating taking the law into their
own hands due to the snail’s pace at which the matter was being addressed. One
of the children, *Lungile, informed the police that ‘everyone at home was
blaming me for having sexual intercourse with my father, as if it was my
fault’. She told the police that she stayed with her father, stepsister, her
brother and a helper in 2006, when she was doing Form I and was 12 years old.
She said her stepmother was staying in another town where she was employed and
she would visit them on weekends. In the same year, according to Lungile, the
lawyer began touching her inappropriately and sexually abused her and her aunt,
who was a year older than her. She alleged that the lawyer would come at night
to the room she shared with her aunt and call either of them to his room, where
he abused them sexually.
She alleged that she visited her mother in the neighbouring country during
school holidays and when she returned, the lawyer said she was more beautiful
and continued to have sexual intercourse with her.
Lungile said she was very scared to speak ‘because in my mind I did not
believe what was happening to me, that my own father would hurt me like that’.
Sometimes when she was asleep, she said, she would wake up and find her father
undressing her and he would press her to the bed and have sexual intercourse
with her. “That was the longest night of my life and the most painful
experience,” she informed the police. Lungile said she fell pregnant and her
stepmother asked her about it. She stated that she immediately told her
everything and that her father was behind the pregnancy.
She alleged that the lawyer had advised her to tell anyone who enquired about
her pregnancy that she had sex with a boy during a party.
Lungile also alleged that her father did not allow her to visit her maternal
homestead when she was pregnant and made arrangements for her to have an
abortion in a South African hospital, where he registered her under a false
name. She said she fell pregnant several times afterwards.
Pregnant
According to Lungile, her aunt also fell pregnant by the lawyer and when her
family found out about it, they called the police. She said the police arrived
at her school and asked about her aunt’s situation and she told them all that
she knew, ‘however, they never asked about my situation’. Her aunt was 13
years old. Lungile stated that her stepmother assaulted her when she found out
that the lawyer was still having sex with them, and said they thought they were
bomgcaki bakhe (sharing a man with her). She said her father called his
attorneys and complained that she had been questioned without parental consent.
She said there was a time when she and her 13-year-old aunt were both pregnant
and the lawyer allegedly took them to a hospital in Schoemasdal, South Africa,
to have an abortion.  The doctor at the hospital is said to have advised that it
would be dangerous to perform the procedure since she was 20 weeks into the
pregnancy and her father persuaded the doctor. She alleged that after the
abortion, the sexual abuse by her father continued, despite family meetings
being held about the matter and her aunt left the lawyer’s residence. She
alleged that her father also had a child with their helper and her stepmother
terminated her services when she found out that the lawyer was allegedly having
sex with her as well. Lungile said during that period, her father was arrested
and later released. The minor said she fell pregnant again when she was 15 years
old and in Form III. She alleged that her father arranged that she be taken to
Nelspruit to have another abortion. She said she returned and the sexual abuse
continued and she fell pregnant yet again. She said her father told her that she
was now aware of the procedure and gave her abortion tablets.
*Not real names