A maid who was convicted and jailed after she stabbed to death a gardener who attempted to rape her has finally been cleared on appeal. ...
A maid who was convicted and jailed after she stabbed to
death a gardener who attempted to rape her has finally been cleared on appeal.
The Zimbabwe Women Lawyers Association was appalled by the case
and fought in her corner. The association said in a statement :”In 2017, our
client was found guilty of culpable homicide which can be simplified to mean
negligently causing another person's death. She was working as a maid while he
was working as a gardener when the unfortunate event occurred. On this specific
date, the now deceased person had attempted to rape her once in the morning
causing her to sustain physical body injuries and after successfully escaping
the attack, the deceased went after her again during the late hours of the
afternoon.
At first she ran away from the garage where he had returned
to have non-consensual sexual intercourse with her and she went into the
kitchen. This seemed to only fuel the deceased as he continued to make his
violent advancements. She initially used a bottle of cooking oil to defend
herself and after failing to ward him off, took the knife which was on sink as
she had made lunch earlier that afternoon. She stabbed him once on the left
side of his chest and he ran for about 26m from the kitchen before he fell to
his death. She was convicted and found guilty of culpable homicide and
sentenced to 18 months in prison.
In the same year we successfully helped her to get bail
pending appeal which led to her temporary release at the time. Today on the 6th
of November 2018 she has been found not guilty and acquitted pf all charges on
appeal. So many errors at law were agreed to have been made in reaching the
initial decision by the Magistrate. There was no excessive force used because
had she not acted, she would have been a victim of rape and all the adverse
consequences on the body and the mind that stem thereof.
We would like to commend Advocate Patti Kachidza for
standing in to represent this survivor of rape. She managed to avert such a
grievous attack on her person only having vision in one eye.
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