AN HIV-positive Shurugwi teenager has been sentenced to three years in prison for raping his four-year-old cousin.
The youth, 15, who cannot be named because of his age, told a Gweru magistrate that his behaviour had been influenced watching pornography.
He was found to be HIV positive after undergoing a medical examination at Shurugwi District Hospital.
Initial tests on the cousin -- a Grade Zero infant at a Shurugwi primary school -- turned out negative and she is waiting for the three-month window period to lapse before undergoing another test.
Meanwhile, the court heard that the assault happened last month when the youth and his cousin were left with a grandmother after the girl’s mother travelled to neighbouring Botswana.
On the day of the attack the teenager is said to have taken his infant cousin into the grandmother’s bedroom where he started kissing her privates before raping her once.
He raped again on another day when the grandmother was away from home and threatened to assault her if she reported the attack to their grandmother.
However, the matter came to light following the mother’s return home from Botswana.
Prosecutors said the girl screamed I pain when her mother tried to bath her privates and revealed the assault after being interviewed.
In mitigation, the youth told magistrate Judith Zuyu that he had been influenced by pornographic material he used to watch at the home.
Zuyu however, sentenced him to three years in prison which he will serve at a Gweru juvenile detention centre.
His lawyer, Hillary Garikai said they would investigate how he had contracted the deadly disease.
“It’s still a mystery how the boy contracted the disease and information at hand is that the boy has been taking anti-retroviral drugs since 2009,” Garikai said.
"We are going to conduct our own investigations with the intention of getting whoever infected the boy arrested,” he said.