Corpun file 15130

Sunday Observer, Dar es Salaam, 6 February 2005

Lindi peasant jailed 71 years

By Saidi Hamdani, PST, Lindi

The Lindi District Court magistrate, Michael Mteite, sentenced a peasant in Ruangwa District, Lindi Region, Abdul Rashidi Chimbuli (40), to 71 years imprisonment and 24 strokes of the cane after finding him guilty of rape, last Thursday.

The court convicted Chimbuli on four counts breaking into someone's house, raping a pregnant woman four times, eloping with somebody's wife and robbery.

Prosecuting, Inspector Christopher Fuime told the court that the accused committed the offences on August 17 last year, in Mtambile village.

The raped woman was Mwanahamisi Ally (24), the wife of Mohamed Mpunga.

Fuime explained that the accused broke into the couple's house shortly after midnight.

In her testimony, Mwanahamisi said the culprit was brandishing a machete. He ordered her to surrender money to him, but when she replied that she had none, he struck her with the flat side of the weapon and then forcibly had sex with the victim.

She tearfully narrated further that the culprit then ordered her to carry her five-year-old child and accompany him to an unknown destination. Along the way, he forcibly had sex with her three more times.

She said at sunrise, they reached Chunyu village, some 15 kilometres away. The rapist freed her, apparently worried that the people they had met could detect that something was amiss and taken action.

Mwanahamisi reported the matter to village authorities, and the assailant was subsequently arrested and handed over to the police.

She said she suffered abdominal pains, frequent purging and eventually gave birth prematurely.

When the accused was asked to say something in mitigation, he responded by saying that he had nothing to say.

The magistrate sentenced him to five years imprisonment for the first count of breaking into a house, 50 years imprisonment and 24 strokes of the cane for the second count of rape.

Mteite also sentenced the accused to one year imprisonment for the third count of eloping with somebody else's wife and 15 years imprisonment for the fourth count of robbery.