The Sunday News
Tinomuda Chakanyuka, Senior Reporter
A PASTOR is still bitter even after he is now out of jail. Mr Edias Ncube walked out of Khami Maximum Prison on 29 December last year after serving nearly five years for a crime which he still pleads his innocence.
In 2012, a Bulawayo magistrate convicted and sentenced Mr Ncube to 15 years in prison, but suspended eight years for five years. Mr Ncube’s crime was raping his then 21-year-old housemaid on several occasions between 2008 and 2010. For his sins, which he vehemently still denies, Mr Ncube served four years and eight months. A third of the sentence was lifted on grounds of good behaviour.
It is said that every story has two sides, if not more. Mr Ncube’s side of the tale is that he did not commit the crime for which he served time for. When most would expect him to come out clean and admit wrong doing after duly serving his punishment, Mr Ncube insists he is an innocent man who was wrongly accused and punished.
“The girl lied. I never raped her. I was made to suffer for a crime I didn’t commit,” he said.
Mr Ncube, a former Seventh Day Adventist Church student pastor, walked out of prison a free man, but walked into the world without much else. The life he had tried to build was now broken, the job he studied for had disappeared. The life he knew was gone. Only his young family, a wife and two children were left, fortunately. His kith and kin, churchmates and neighbours now look at him with disdain. Stigma and discrimination have become his new acquaintances.
At the time of his conviction Mr Ncube had just completed pastoral studies at Solusi University and was looking forward to serve as a pastor in the church. Instead he found himself ministering in prison to fellow inmates, after he was condemned to Khami Maximum Prison. According to Mr Ncube, his church was the first to try and convict him before the courts had their say on the case. He was stripped of his duties in church and his deployment as a pastor suspended upon completing his training.
“I graduated in March 2011 and was supposed to be deployed in April the same year but the deployment never came. The church had already ruled that I was guilty,” he said.
Mr Ncube is a bitter man and is seeking justice, to clear his name.
“You can’t give the five years that I lost in prison. I want justice. I want to clear my name. I will pursue every available avenue to get justice.”
Mr Ncube, who turns 40 this year, said he has forgiven his accuser but may not forget.
“I have forgiven her but it’s difficult to forget. I can’t forget the time I spent in prison, I can’t forget the humiliation I faced, the stigma I continue to face,” he said.
Added Mr Ncube, “I have a criminal record. All doors are closed permanently. I can’t even perform general duties in church.”
Mr Ncube was convicted of four counts of rape on 30 April 2012 but insists his accuser’s testimony before courts was false and meant to fix him. The complainant alleged admitted, in sworn affidavits deposed before the courts in 2012 that she concocted her testimony to fix Mr Ncube. Three attempts by the complainant to withdraw the case, twice before Mr Ncube was convicted and once after his conviction were, however, futile. The complainant’s attempt to withdraw the charges on 20 February 2012 was rejected by a Bulawayo magistrate on grounds that the withdrawal was not genuine. Mr Ncube maintains he did not influence the complainant to withdraw the case, as suspected by the court.
“In the whole process I remained faithful to my bail conditions. I didn’t communicate with the complainant or her relatives.
So there is no way I could have bribed her to withdraw the case. In fact, her relatives are the ones who tried to talk to me but I refused,” he said.
Quizzed Mr Ncube, “How the magistrate ruled that the withdrawal was not genuine beats me until now”.
After his conviction the complainant deposed yet another affidavit at the High Court confessing that she laid the charges out of malice and spitefulness.
“I respectfully submit that the honourable court rectify this gross miscarriage of justice caused by myself out of cruelty. I repeat once again that Mr Ncube is an innocent man who was just a victim of circumstances. He never raped me at any particular point in our stay together,” reads the affidavit in part.
Again her prayers with courts were not heard. Mr Ncube recounted the complainant’s testimony in court during trial which he disputed in its totality.
Despite the rejection he has faced in church, Mr Ncube said he will remain faithful to God and the principles of the church, and would not be tempted to leave the church. He is grateful to his wife, whom he said had remained supportive and faithful throughout his ordeal.
@irielyan
