Rapist of girl, four, loses appeal, jailed for life

WHILE Members of Parliament are pushing for law amendments to have rapists castrated, the Court of Appeal has upheld the life imprisonment sentence imposed on a resident of Mbeya Region, Posolo Wilson, alias Mwalyego, for raping a minor over superstitious beliefs.
 
According to records, Wilson, the appellant, had raped the young girl (name withheld) in compliance with the advice of a traditional doctor based in Iringa Region, that he would become rich. However, things didn’t turn out in his favour, and he will have to spend the rest of his life in prison for his barbaric act.

Although the prosecution had attempted to save him by supporting his appeal on grounds that he was not properly identified as the culprit and confession evidence relied upon by the trial court to ground his conviction was not proper, the appellate court came up with different findings to hold him responsible.

Justices Bernard Luanda, Batuel Mmilla and Gerald Ndika agreed with the prosecution’s position that the evidence of identification could not be the basis of conviction of the appellant as the one who had raped the four-year-old girl since the crime was committed in darkness.

However, they said, there was other cogent proof that the appellant was, indeed, the culprit, including the oral confessional statements he made on two different occasions, which the justices found valid and reliable.

They noted that the appellant at first confessed before a hamlet chairman in the presence of other witnesses and had offered to give to the victim’s mother an anticipated maize and ground nuts harvest from his farm as compensation.

According to the justices, the appellant confessed on the second occasion before the village chairman where he owned up to his guilty and blamed a certain witchdoctor based in Iringa Region who had allegedly instructed him to rape a child as a basis for becoming rich.

“It is settled that an oral confession made by a suspect, before or in the presence of reliable witnesses, be they civilian or not, may be sufficient by itself to pin conviction against the suspect,” the justices pointed out.

There were suggestions by the prosecution and the appellant that he was not a free agent at the time he made the two confessions. The appellant claimed that he was subjected to beatings. In their judgment, however, the justices noted that witnesses were not cross-examined on the claims.

“If the appellant thought that the statement he made was not voluntary and that it was extracted through beatings, he ought to have cross-examined the witnesses on that point. It is trite that failure to cross-examine a witness on an important matter implies acceptance of truth of witness’s evidence,” they said.

The justices further noted that the appellant only seriously repudiated the two statements during his defence by alleging that certain militiamen whose names he did not disclose beat him up. This, they said, was an afterthought and did not deserve much consideration.

Moreover, the justices said, they were fortified in their view that earlier in his defence evidence, the appellant confirmed to the trial court that he was ready and willing to meet the treatment costs for the victim of rape even though he had not raped the girl.

“We think the appellant’s promise to pick the treatment bill was not just an act of a Good Samaritan. It was borne out of guilt consciousness. We find the two oral statements imputed to the appellant were, for all intents and purposes, valid confession,” they ruled.

They concluded that such statements were sufficient by themselves to have founded the appellant’s conviction of rape. “We find no basis to fault the High Court’s decision to sustain the conviction and sentence against the appellant by the trial court.

We dismiss the appeal in its entirety,” they declared. It was alleged during the trial that on May 21, 2014 at 21.00 hours, the victim’s mother returned home and found her daughter missing. Moments later she rushed to a nearby bush from which cries of a child had originated.

The mother found a male person she identified as the appellant molesting her daughter.

The mother raised an alarm while confronting the appellant at the scene of the crime. The appellant fled as a number of villagers were gathering. While the mother of the victim reported the matter that in the fateful evening, the appellant was swiftly apprehended on the following morning.