Durban - A WOMAN from Harding, south of Durban, who was raped while seven months pregnant and in the presence of a friend, said she is consoled by the high court's decision to sentence the man who raped her and six other women to seven life imprisonment terms.
On Friday, she and some of the victims witnessed KwaZulu-Natal Judge President Achmat Jappie sentence serial rapist Mlungisi Mjoli, 32, to an additional 76 years' imprisonment for kidnapping, robbery, assault, and assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.
She had waited five years to see Mjoli punished for raping her, and it had not been easy after the case she opened against him was withdrawn.
After spending two weeks in custody, Mjoli was released on bail and the charges withdrawn in 2016.
“I lost hope that he would ever be punished,” she said.
In 2017, the case was reopened after police linked Mjoli to rapes in other areas. All the cases were combined and transferred to the Inanda Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences Unit and assigned to two investigating officers.
Investigations conducted by Sergeants Vusi Shinga and Mndeni Mzila led to Mjoli’s arrest in April 2017, and he was charged with seven counts of rape. Mjoli had been paroled in 2010, after serving four years of a nine-year sentence for a rape committed in Umzimkhulu. The Harding woman said the rape had not only made her pregnancy difficult, but bringing up her daughter, who is now four years old, had also been difficult.
“I look at my daughter and worry that what happened to me could happen to her. She attends crèche because I have to be at work and I worry about her safety there.”
She and her friend were sleeping at night when Mjoli broke into the room and raped her at knife point, while her friend lay in the same bed. It appears he would have also raped her friend, but someone whistled for him to come out and he left without raping her.
“I still cry when I think about the night he raped me. After charges were withdrawn, he still continued to rape other women.”
During the trial, Mjoli claimed that some of the women he preyed on in Ntsikeni, Chatsworth, Inanda, and KwaDukuza were his girlfriends.
He raped several women after breaking into their homes at night, while he also targeted women walking alone at night between 2014 and 2015.
Prosecutor Khatija Essack said: “He has no respect for other people, especially women. He was preying on innocent and defenceless women. One of them was seven months pregnant; another was raped in front of her two children. He stabbed one on her face and hit the other with a firearm.”
In sentencing Mjoli to a life imprisonment term for each count, Judge Jappie said he had the responsibility of handing down a sentence that would send out a strong message to other would-be rapists.