'Prophet' rapes churchmate

A Harare prophet raped a woman at his shrine claiming he wanted to remove goblins in her stomach with his manhood, the court heard yesterday.

Blessing Machowa (26) was facing rape charges when he appeared before magistrate Mr Tendai Mahwe and was remanded in custody to August 2 after being advised to apply for bail at the High Court.

Allegations are that on June 3, Machowa called the complainant (20) on her mobile phone telling her to visit his shrine with red pepper, a blue pen, razor, needle and plain paper so that he could remove evil spirits which needed to be cleansed.

The complainant complied and went to the shrine where Machowa told her that he had seen some goblins inside her stomach which were put by her brother.

The court heard that Machowa told the complainant that he wanted to remove the goblins using his manhood but the complainant refused. It is alleged that he grabbed the complainant who was kneeling and raped her before telling her that she was going to be killed by the goblins if she revealed the matter to anyone.

It is the State's case that due to fear of death, the complainant did not disclose the matter to anyone until she skipped her menstrual period. The court heard that the complainant told Machowa about it and he said it was only foam in her stomach. The accused person, the court heard, went on to tell the complainant that the foam would cause her stomach to grow bigger and that she should not worry since she was not pregnant.