Sex pest pastor to appeal verdict

A PASTOR who was found guilty of multiple charges in 2013 for raping his then 12-year-old victim at gunpoint, was on Tuesday granted permission to appeal the verdict and sentence.

After serving almost five of his of his 50 year sentence, Reverend Phangumusa Mtungwa (67) of the Rock of Life Church in Nhlangenyuke area near Mtunzini appeared before eSikhawini Regional Magistrate’s Court and made his application for leave to appeal.

His case will now be heard at the Pietermaritzburg High Court.

Mtungwa was sentenced to 50 years imprisonment on five counts of rape.

He was charged in 2010 for sexually assaulting a young woman after the complainant opened a case at the eSikhawini police station.

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The victim had told the court the pastor repeatedly raped her in 1998, 1999 and 2003 when she stayed with him in his house.

During her testimony in court, the young victim said the pastor came to her room, and produced a gun before he raped her.

‘Afterwards he told me not to say anything or he would kill me. I was just 12 years old and was very scared,’ the complainant testified in 2013.

The victim said the second rape occurred two weeks later, and that it continued when she was 13 in 1999.

In 2003 after a fifth rape incident at a sugarcane loading zone, the victim reported the rapes to her boyfriend and father, who then confronted the pastor.

According to the victim’s father’s testimonial in court, the reverend had offered to pay anything to prevent the matter from being reported to the police.

In 2010, the victim was 25 years old and a student at the University of Zululand when she decided to lay charges.

During the trial, Mtungwa first denied the charges, but later confessed to having consensual sex with the victim and said she had made sexual advances towards him.

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