KWEKWE Urban MP Blessing Chebundo [MDC-T] is a child rapist “hiding behind the veil of politics”, a prosecutor told a Gweru magistrate at the conclusion of the legislator’s rape trial.

Emmanuel Muchenga tore into Chebundo’s defence that a 14-year-old girl brought up the allegations in order to “fix” the MP for ending an affair with her sister.

"Let me put it to you that you are hiding behind the veil of politics in denying the rape allegations," the prosecutor charged. "There are no political machinations here and if the complainant's sister was out to fix you because of bitterness over a failed relationship as you put it, would she not have rather said you raped her since you said yourself you were in a relationship with her, and was having sex with her during that time?

"Why would she go the long way, and through a minor, to get even with you? I will put it to you that you raped the complainant and no politics was involved."

Looking emotional and distinctly irritated, Chebundo shot back: "When you connive as a group, you can come up with anything possible.

"What you are saying is not true. I did not at any time have sex with the complainant."

The dramatic exchanges at the Gweru Victim Friendly Court concluded a month-long trial which could end one of Zimbabwe’s most promising political careers.

Chebundo, one of the MDC’s founder members and the party’s former health secretary, was arrested on May 20 in Harare and charged with raping the 14-year-old teen on January 5 this year. Prosecutors say she fell pregnant as a result.

On the witness stand, the girl said she took four months to report the alleged attack because the MP threatened her with “disappearance”.

The teenager, forced by the pregnancy to drop out of school where she was in Form 2, gave birth to a baby girl early this month. But legal watchers of the trial were surprised neither the prosecutors nor Chebundo’s defence team initiated any paternity tests on the baby.

“That baby is perhaps the most credible piece of evidence which could have swayed this case one way or the other, but both sides passed the chance. It’s a mystery,” said one Gweru lawyer.

Pregnant ... The 14-year-old teen is seen with her bump outside court in August

As the trial concluded, Chebundo’s defence team led by Advocate Happias Zhou called its only witnesses – the MP himself.

Under cross-examination from Zhou, Chebundo began by narrating to the court his political experiences since May 2000, describing them as "horrifying". He described himself as the MDC’s founding chairman for Midlands North.

“Before the June [2000] parliamentary elections, Kwekwe was gripped by heavy political violence. I had challenged a political heavyweight in the form of Emerson Mnangagwa. I wrested the Kwekwe constituency from him,” Chebundo said.

Advocate Zhou asked the MP if he was so influential as to make his teenage accuser “disappear”.

Chebundo replied: “To say I threatened the complainant is totally untrue. There was no reason for me to threaten her. In fact it was I who was actually on the receiving end, so I don't see how I could influence the police."

"What do you mean by saying you were on the receiving end?” quipped Advocate Zhou.

Chebundo then recalled the events of May 9, 2000, when he was still employed at Sable Chemicals. He claimed it was just after 7:15AM when, in the company of four colleagues waiting for a bus, 12 men in overalls approached them.

"One of them identified me and said to me: ‘How dare you want to challenge our chef (chief)?’

"The other produced a container full of petrol and poured it on my head. He was shivering and soaked the match-box in petrol. I wrestled with him and got help from others present and the men escaped."

"Again on May 15, 2000, a group of men, some armed with knobkerries and petrol containers visited my house. Lit petrol containers were thrown into the house and much of it (house) was burnt. I spotted police Sergeant Chaminuka and Constable Rodgers Jasiya [among the arsonists]. I reported the incident to the police and no arrests were made."

Chebundo also narrated to the court how he came to know the teenage girl’s parents in August 2003. He met them through his accuser’s sister, who was a child MP for Kwekwe at the time.

"We arranged the meeting since they had reservations with an MDC MP working with their daughter. The complainant's father informed me that him and his wife were both veterans of the armed struggle and, therefore, by virtue of that, the MDC and war veterans could not mix," Chebundo said.

"But with the passage of time, and after we had discovered that based on our totems he was my uncle, they opened up."

Married Chebundo said he had assisted his accuser’s sister with her education before they had an extra-marital affair. The affair was denied by the former child MP when she took the witness stand for the prosecution.

The MP said: "I have always assisted the complainant's sister since she was a child MP. When she passed her O Levels with flying colours in 2004, her father said he had no money for her to proceed to Advanced Level. But I agreed with him that I would take care of part of the fees.

"After she completed her A Levels in 2006, I agreed with her parents that she take the post of my personal assistant (PA) since the one who was there was leaving. So she became my PA on a full time basis from December 2006 to August 2007, and on a part time basis up to the end of 2008."

The MP claimed the affair with his accuser’s sister began at the end of 2006 and that during the time of their “smooth relationship", they would go for regular HIV and AIDS tests together as they had vowed to "jealously guard their negative HIV status."

Advocate Zhou then turned the cross-examination to the alleged rape incident near the Sebakwe River Bridge along the Harare-Kwekwe highway. Prosecutors claimed the MP – who had given the girl a lift to Harare and back -- took a short detour from the main road to use the Old Sebakwe River Bridge, then stopped the car and proceeded to rape the girl.

"On our way back from Harare on the alleged rape date, I actually gave a lift to four male passengers. Two of them were going to Kadoma and the other two said they would drop in Kwekwe at a BP garage,” Chebundo told the court.

He added: “I never turned from the road alone with her, neither did I rape. She also never slept on our way from Harare. It's all false.

"I personally think this whole issue borders on (name removed), the complainant's sister. When I terminated the relationship around April 2009 after discovering that she was seeing other men, she was very bitter.

“I also remember the last time I spoke with her on May 18 she was very bitter and had to cut the phone before the end of the conversation."

Chebundo’s defence then steered the cross-examination to the centrepiece of their defence – portraying the proceedings as a political show trial planned by pro-Zanu PF intelligence services and made possible by a vindictive woman using her teenage sister’s pregnancy to wreck a promising political career.

A day before his arrest on May 19, Chebundo claimed to have received a call just after 6:30PM from an individual who identified himself as a police officer at Mbizo, Kwekwe.

“He wanted to know where I was and asked me to come to the police station as soon as I reach Kwekwe," the MP said.

About two hours later, on the same day, he got another call, this time from his accuser’s mother who told the MP: “There are MDC youths harassing my daughter."

"The first caller said ‘where you are MP? We are watching your steps and we are going to deal with you.’ And the second caller said 'we are war veterans, we know what you have done and we will deal with you.’"

Chebundo said after his arrest in Harare, and when he was detained at a police station in Kwekwe, he “saw members of the Zanu PF leadership and the President's Office [Central Intelligence Organisation] coming in and out" at regular intervals.

After the defence rested, the magistrate asked for closing statements. Advocate Zhou said the state case had “many inconsistencies”. The test, he said, was to prove “beyond reasonable doubt” that Chebundo was a rapist. On that score, the prosecution had failed, the lawyer said.

Advocate Zhou said: "The state has a case against the accused and they have the onus to prove beyond reasonable doubt that rape occurred.

"There are many inconsistencies in this case from the evidence given by state witnesses. There is the credibility of the complainant. At her age, that of only 14, we saw how she looked clever enough when testifying in camera.

“She looked very composed and told the court her side of the story -- that she found the accused on top of her whilst asleep and she was facing upwards.

"She also said the rape was her first sexual encounter culminating in a pregnancy. But we had a medical doctor testifying that tests revealed she had sex on a number of occasions.

"We also have another state witness, an [Assistant] Inspector Taurai Gororo testifying that the complainant told her she was raped while forcibly pinned down, lying facing downwards on her tummy.

"And the issue was reported just more than five months after it occurred and with the two-holed underwear presented in court as evidence having been washed after the incident purportedly occurred.

"We have the complainant's sister, clever as she appeared, testifying in this court that it took her two weeks to report the issue to her parents after the sister (complainant) had told her of the alleged rape, saying she feared divulging the issue as her parents were medically feeling unwell at the time.

"The pressure on the complainant was pregnancy and therefore she made these allegations."

For the state, Muchenga said Chebundo’s defence was built around the claim that he was the victim of political machinations. Muchenga said this defence was thin on evidence.

"The accused says the case is being manufactured by his political rivals, but where is the evidence? The court does not act on assumptions but evidence,” Muchenga said, imploring the magistrate to send the MP to jail.