Johannesburg - A serial rapist who blamed his victims for trying to seduce or solicit him has been convicted for his crimes, with the high court sitting in Palm Ridge ruling his testimony was full of lies.
Peter Panyaza Nemusunda raped at least four women between 2011 and 2014, with three of the incidents happening in one month. His modus operandi was similar in each case, taking his victims to secluded areas before robbing and raping them, before fleeing the scene.
While the 32-year-old initially told the court he was guilty of the crimes, he then contradicted his plea by saying each sexual attack was actually consensual.
During his trial, he claimed that one of the women was his girlfriend, another was an older woman trying to seduce him, the third a prostitute and the last a one-night stand.
But Judge Gibson Ngobeni ruled on Thursday that not a single one of the rapist’s versions could be true. He said there was no way each woman would claim similar experiences in their accounts despite never having met.
The judge said each of the women who testified in the trial had been credible throughout their time on the stand, and that Nemusunda’s claims that one of the women had “cried rape” because he had made her late for work was entirely unbelievable. He noted how the women had each said their lives had been irreparably harmed by Nemusunda.
He is expected to be sentenced on Monday.
The Star