Kereke wife breaks down during trial

Zanu-PF Bikita West legislator Munyaradzi Kereke's wife broke down in court yesterday while defending her husband who is accused of raping her 11-year-old niece.

Instead she accused the young girl of giving herself to drunkards because she was a "party animal." Patience Muswapadare Taruvinga said this as she continued testifying in Kereke's defence case.

Private prosecutor Charles Warara asked Taruvinga what it means when a doctor says the hymen of an 11-year-old child is broken.

She said it means that she lost her virginity.

"As I know her, it might not have been rape. She was naughty and the abuse happened elsewhere," she said.

Warara asked if it was fair to say that about an 11-year-old child.

"I don't know. All I know is that they were naughty. They sneaked out and mingled with drunkards. One day I followed up when they failed to show up at my house," said Taruvinga.

Warara asked when she followed up on her nieces and Taruvinga said she didn't remember.

"Did you see the girls being naughty?" asked Warara.

"No, I didn't," she replied and Warara asked who saw them being naughty.

Again Taruvinga said she didn't know.

"Sooner or later we will call you Mrs I don't Know. At least you should know something. At the end of the day we don't know anything and haven't heard anything," said Warara.

Taruvinga sobbed in court as she narrated how former Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe governor Gideon Gono allegedly sent emissaries to her late father to persuade her to testify against her husband.

Asked by the private prosecutor why she was crying, Taruvinga said she wished her father was still alive.

Warara asked why there was need to persuade her to testify against her husband, Kereke.

"It means you had information that you were not willing to disclose", he said.

Taruvinga replied that "people" were sent to her father.

"You find it convenient to lie about your father now. There must be something curious about the people," said Warara.

To this Taruvinga said she didn't know.

Warara asked again how she knew that the person who sent those people was Gono.

"My father told me," she said.

"He saw Dr Gono?" asked Warara and Taruvinga said she didn't know.

"Who're these people?" asked Warara and again she said she didn't know.

"How then do we know that your father was telling the truth?" asked Warara.

"I don't know. I'm sorry my father is dead, you could have asked him," she replied.

Kereke is accused of raping his 11-year-old niece at gun point in 2010 after indecently assaulting her sister who was 15 years at the time. The trial continues on Tuesday.