A serial rapist who masqueraded as omalayitsha (private cross-border courier operator) was sentenced to 232 years in jail on Friday at Tredgold Regional Magistrates Court in Bulawayo.
The National Prosecuting Authority of Zimbabwe (NPAZ) said Prosper Bhule (30), was charged with 18 counts of rape after he violated teenage girls in Bulawayo aged between 13 and 19 from 2018 December to March 2022. Said NPAZ:
The accused person targeted the girls when they were alone at home, or on the way to school or an errand.
He lured them from the security of their homes by saying that he had been sent to advise the girls that their parents, guardians or relatives had sent them some parcels or groceries from South Africa or vegetables from the local market.
He would insist that the girls must go to the collection point with him to get the parcels.
He lied so convincingly that his victims followed him to the said collection point. He took the victims through a bushy area where he would threaten them with an okapi knife, kick them with booted feet and assault them with fists before raping them. He also robbed the victims of their cellphones.
All the victims made a report to the nearest police station soon after being raped. The prompt reports and descriptions given by the victims helped the police to realise that they were dealing with a sophisticated criminal who premeditated his crimes.
He gathered information about the victims and the frequency with which they were likely to receive parcels, groceries etc from relatives and used the information to commit his crimes.
Bhule was arrested after a massive manhunt that was coordinated by the Homicide division of the Criminal Investigations Department(CID).
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