Rapist to be sentenced

A Zimbabwean man who kidnapped women in the streets of Pretoria and kept them at gunpoint while repeatedly raping them, will be sentenced in the High Court in Pretoria today.

Morris Shungu, 31, was in August last year convicted on 16 charges of rape, robbery with aggravating circumstances, kidnapping, sexual assault and being an illegal immigrant after pleading guilty to the charges.

He admitted that between September 2015 and February 2016 he kidnapped and raped five women after accosting them on the street early in the morning and forcing them to accompany him to deserted places.
All of his victims, who were on their way to work or school, were held at gunpoint and some were raped up to nine times during the course of a day. One victim was choked and throttled and Shungu threatened to kill her. Another was forced to undress before Shungu washed her body and panties in a river.

One woman was taken to at least four different locations where she was raped each time. Another woman was held down by an unknown accomplice and throttled while Shungu raped her. The victims ranged from an intensive care nursing sister to a veterinary student, a female security guard and a domestic worker. All were robbed of their personal belongings, including cash, bank cards and cellphones.

Prosecutor Lizette Williams yesterday asked the court to sentence Shungu to life imprisonment in the instances where he had raped his victims more than once and to 15 years’ imprisonment on the robbery charges.

She said it was clear from the impact reports that the victims were severely traumatised. All of them suffered broken relationships with spouses, boyfriends and family members. The intensive care unit nursing sister had to stop working and could not earn a salary due to the trauma of the attack on her. She and her family suffered financial hardship as a result.

Williams quoted a previous judgment which described rape as reaching pandemic proportions in the country and becoming a cancer that threatened to destroy the moral and social fabric of society.

– ilsedl@citizen.co.za

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