Prime News Ghana

South Africa shocked by live rape trial of Timothy Omotoso

By Wendy Amarteifio
South Africa_shocked by live rape trial
60-year-old Nigerian televangelist, Timothy Omotoso, denies the allegation.
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A televised rape trial in South Africa has prompted a furious public backlash after a witness - who says she was raped by her pastor from the age of 14 - was subjected to a lengthy and, at times, aggressively intimate cross-examination by the lawyer representing a 60-year-old Nigerian televangelist, Timothy Omotoso, who denies the allegation.

Over the weekend, Mr Omotoso's church, in the coastal city of Port Elizabeth, was forced to shut its door after angry crowds besieged the building, while a Sunday newspaper reported that the woman who gave evidence against him - Cheryl Zondi, now a 22-year-old student - had received death threats ahead of the trial.

The trial - the first prominent rape case to be broadcast live in a country where more than 100 rapes are reported to the police each day - has attracted huge interest, and raised difficult questions about victims' rights, impartiality and whether justice is best served by having television cameras in courtrooms.

Anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela's granddaughter, Ndileka Mandela - who said in 2017 that she had been raped by a former boyfriend - is one of many South African women who have voiced support for Ms. Zondi, linking her experience to the global #MeToo movement.

Ms Mandela argued that the student's treatment during three days in the witness box helped explain why so many rape victims stay silent in a nation with notoriously high levels of sexual violence.

"I really feel pain for this young woman and I am so proud to see how courageous she's been on the witness stand," Ms Mandela told South Africa's Sunday Times newspaper.

Credit : BBC 

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