HARARE – A ZBC radio DJ broke down in court on Thursday as she recounted being raped by the self-styled prophet Tapiwa Freddy of the Goodness and Mercy Ministries.
The 33-year-old woman claimed Freddy shouted ‘Thank you my Lord’ during the attack in her home on a date in November 2020.
Freddy, 38, denies the charges.
Hours before the attack, the widowed woman said the married Freddy had driven her to her rural home in Chiendambuya and then back to Harare.
The preacher, the court heard, had requested to pray for the woman’s son claiming that some evil spirits were pursuing the boy.
Freddy also prayed for her whole family before he drove back to Harare.
She had started speaking to Freddy after approaching him to pray for her ailing husband in November 2019. Freddy, the court heard, paid medical bills for the woman’s husband after he was admitted at Karanda Mission Hospital.
He died weeks later and Freddy provided financial assistance during the burial.
Within months, the woman told the court that Freddy started courting her, complimenting her beauty and promising to take care of her and her son.
She told Freddy that it was a taboo in Shona culture to date another man before a year lapsed following the death of one’s husband, the court heard.
The woman testified: “In January (2020) I went to thank the accused for his assistance during my husband’s illness and after he died. A month later, he started calling saying ‘ma’am you’re glowing. Inini moyo wangu waperera pauri sekufirwa kwawaita ndokwanisa kukuchengeta (My heart yearns for you. With the bereavement you have just had, I can look after you.’
“I told him that it is was a taboo and he seemed to have understood. But in October, he said he feared that other men would snatch me. He said, ‘I want to take care of you and your child’.”
That led to the November 2020 date when they returned to her house in Mt Pleasant Heights, arriving after 7PM.
Freddy, she said, helped her carry some bags inside. She thought he had left when she went into a bathroom to refresh.
“While I was in the toilet, I heard him walking into the house, but I didn’t know which room he went into,” she said. “I got out of the toilet and went to the bedroom and I found him lying on the bed. He had removed his shoes and there was a gun in one of the shoes.
“I then sat on a chair and asked him why he was on my bed. The accused called my name asking why I ‘make life impossible’. He quoted a Bible verse saying that my late husband would not know a thing about it because he was dead.
“He said he was not comfortable with the belt, and removed it. Then he stood up and locked the door before throwing the keys under the bed. He told me that from that day, I should accept him as my husband.”
After undressing, the woman, who has one arm, said Freddy “held me with his powerful hands and I failed to fight him.”
“He threw me on the bed… He was pressing me down with his stomach while on top of me saying that I should not turn down the anointing he was going to give me,” she said.
The court heard Freddy was saying “Thank you my Lord” as he raped her.
Freddy, she testified, told her of other women who died because they “refused the anointing” or told other people they had been raped.
Freddy allegedly used an example of Prophetic Healing and Deliverance ministries founder Walter Magaya, whose alleged girlfriend died in Botswana.
The woman remembered: “He said ‘our Gods are different, mine is a killer’.”
The woman told the court that Freddy also told her he could get her fired from the ZBC because he was in good books with her boss.
When the trial kicked off on Wednesday, Freddy said his accuser was driven by malice. He said they had consensual sex and she only reported him for rape after he called time on their affair.
The trial continues.
