Rapist answers for every single penetration
Innocent Selatlhwa | Wednesday April 1, 2026 06:00
The apex court has reversed a High Court decision that determined that four incidents of forced sexual intercourse over three days constitute a single count of rape.
Rivers Kakana, who had thought he had completed his 10-year sentence for rape, has been whisked behind bars to serve five more years as per the initial Magistrate's Court decision.
At the time the appeal was heard, Kakana was a free man, and it had taken a long time for the court to locate him and make him aware that the state was appealing. He, however, would not make an appearance, but was then apprehended by the police as he was in court when a ruling was made that he had to return to custody.
Kakana was charged, prosecuted, and convicted by the Nata Magistrate's Court of four counts of the offence of rape. He was said to have unlawfully had canal knowledge of one female victim (name known to this publication) on March 7, 2013, and once on March 8 and 9, 2013, respectively.
He was sentenced on December 5, 2017, to 10 years imprisonment for each of the four counts. Effectively, he was sentenced to a 15-year imprisonment term. Dissatisfied with the decision, he took the matter up with the High Court. He was of the view that the court erred and misdirected itself by convicting him when there was no oral evidence adduced at trial.
He also argued that the trial court failed to adopt the correct trial procedure and that the sentence passed was excessive.
The High Court confirmed the conviction but concluded, with respect to sentence, that there was a splitting of charges which led to the improper ordering of consecutive terms. He was then convicted of a single count of rape and sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment.
The CoA concluded that the High Court erred in concluding as it did that there was a splitting of charges.
“The respondent was properly charged, prosecuted and convicted. The only reason the lower court reduced the sentence of the respondent or re- sentenced him was on account of its conclusion that there was a splitting of charges and for no other reason,” Judge President Tebogo Tau, Justice Mercy Garekwe, and Justice Leatile Dambe wrote.
To that end, the judges determined that no misdirection can be attributed to the manner in which the trial court had interrogated the sentencing aspect and the conclusion it reached in meting out the sentence, to warrant interference by the CoA.
“It is therefore proper to reinstate the sentence that was imposed by the trial court and in the manner and to the extent it had imposed it,” they wrote.
The state’s appeal succeeded, the High Court order of April 2022 was set aside, and the initial 15-year sentence was imposed, effectively sending Kakana back to the slammer.