#TBT: About a year ago, Magaya was arrested for rape. What happened since?

Last year around this time Prophetic Healing and Deliverance (PHD) founder Walter Magaya was arrested for raping a 25-year-old Midlands State University (MSU) student. Magaya was arrested on Friday 19 August 2016 and was detained at Rhodesville police station.  On Saturday 20 August 2016 he appeared before magistrate Vakai Chikwekwe who released him on US$2,000 bail.

In November 2016, the complainant dropped the charges citing that she had been influenced to file the charges by people who wanted to see Magaya go down. She narrated how she has been receiving death threats from unknown people if she failed to testify in court to get Magaya convicted. She added that Magaya had no influence in her decision to withdraw the case and neither had he contacted or paid her. Despite the effort by the complainant to drop the charges, prosecutor, Michael Mugabe insisted the State was ready to indict Magaya for trial at the High Court.

On 21 February 2017 the trial at the High Court failed to commence after it emerged that Magaya’s Constitutional Court (ConCourt) application challenging the proceedings, was still pending. The case before the ConCourt is for a decision on the constitutionality of prosecuting a rape suspect following the withdrawal of a report by the complainant.