State cries rape in defilement case :: Mmegi Online

The state has argued that a man jailed for defilement by the High Court should have been charged with rape. State counsel, Bathusi Brown, told the Court of Appeal that the charge of defilement against the man (name withheld to protect the minor’s identity) was improper.

“The victim was nine years old at the time the incident occurred. This rendered her incapable of giving consent, hence the proper charge should have been rape,” Brown said in the case in which the man is appealing the 10-year sentence he got in 2010 for defiling his then nine-year-old cousin. It is alleged that the incident occurred when the man visited the young girl’s home, where she was staying with her mother. At the Court of Appeal this week, the man pleaded for a postponement because he could not get hold of his lawyer. He said prison officials do not allow him to use phones.

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