Mutodi claims Kaukonde bribed magistrate with US$3000 to acquit rapist

By Lance Guma

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Musician, businessman and politician Energy Mutodi has sensationally claimed that Zanu PF’s Mashonaland East provincial chairman Ray Kaukonde paid a US$3000 bribe to a magistrate to acquit a man who raped a 6 year-old girl. 

Mutodi claims that Kaukonde also paid the lawyer who represented the alleged rapist Nomore Mhando Chigeda.

In a no holds barred post on his Facebook account, Mutodi savaged Kaukonde telling him:

“With all the respect that I gave you during and after the elections as my Provincial Chairman, I did not know that you could stoop low to the extent of sponsoring a rapist who raped my brother’s 6 year old daughter.”

Mutodi also claims that Kaukonde, a married man, is having an affair with Goromonzi West Zanu PF MP Beatrice Nyamupinga.

“I know that your aim was to punish me for daring to contest Beatrice Nyamupinga in the primary elections but the extent that you went in trying to fight and punish me tells me that you are very cruel, hard hearted and evil,” Mutodi wrote.

Narrating how the whole saga unfolded Mutodi says the girl who was only six years old in 2010 was raped by Chigeda, a gardener turned clerk at Mutodi’s National Housing Development Trust (NHDT) .

According to Mutodi, Chigeda allegedly raped the girl while she was waiting to be picked by her driver at the NHDT offices at Eastgate in Harare.

“The rapist took the girl into his office, raped her and threatened to kill her if she revealed it to anyone. The rape was only unearthed by schoolteachers at her school who noticed her visit the toilet several times during a school trip. Consequently, a school Medical officer Dr Mayida/ Mahidha was tasked to investigate the problem and that is when the rape was discovered.”

Mutodi claims that despite overwhelming evidence, Chigeda was acquitted. The magistrate said that there was no evidence he had raped her and suggested the girl could have been raped by a close relative who was being protected.

Mutodi claims that one of his staffers, Reason Sibanda, a former CIO operative had told him Chigeda had confessed to raping the girl and avoided conviction following Kaukonde’s intervention.

Upon asking why, Mutodi claims Sibanda said “You know the reason. You wanted to unseat his girlfriend Beatrice”.

Mutodi also claims that his life is in danger because of a plot to kill him. He claims Sibanda said the task was called, “Operation Clear Path 2018”.

“He reminded me of a day during the elections when he unplanted a bomb that had been put in my bedroom by agents of my enemies named Chikoore and Kamfudza. He said they had been sent Kaukonde and being a former CIO boss himself, I have no doubt he has gone this far in order to eliminate me in any future elections,” Mutodi alleged.

“He had something to say in the previous elections but may have nothing to say in future. I know Kaukonde is a powerful man, well linked and connected. I can’t raise a finger against him. He can crash me with the blink of an eye. But my heart weeps when I think of the rape case that he has protected of a 6-year-old orphan.

“Recently, when I met Ray at Borrowdale I congratulated him for winning the Chairmanship once again. I had actually mobilized and voted for him thinking that he now understands me better but not knowing he had done such evil to my family and was ready to do more.

“Nomore is boasting, he is freed because Kaukonde wanted to show me that he is a powerful figure. Mwari Ngaave Newe Kaukonde. Tose tiri kuenda pamberi peMusiki nezuva rekupedzisira. Chokwadi chichabuda pachena,” Mutodi added.

Mutodi himself is not a saint.

In December last year Mutodi allegedly raped a Form 2 pupil at Mashoko High School in Masvingo Province. Its alleged the singer bribed the father of the girl with US$800 to sweep the matter under the carpet. Mutodi also arranged to pay the boarding fees for the girl at the school as a sweetener for the deal.

In his defence Mutodi claimed that it was infact his driver who was in love with the girl. He did not deny that the girl once stayed at his Charlotte Brook home in Harare for temporary refuge but said this was because she was his driver’s ‘wife’.

The singers’ relatives meanwhile claim the rape was done for ritual purposes.

Mutodi is also embroiled in a bitter wrangle with over 15 000 civil servants after allegedly duping them in a residential stands scam. His controversial National Housing Development Trust stands accused of defrauding thousands of desperate home seekers of more than $2 million in Harare, Mutare and Rusape.

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