A well known Bulawayo based Bishop stunned a local court when he failed to recite well known bible verses.
41 year old Andrew Mnkandla was brought before courts after he was nabbed for holding a 17 year old female victim at his house while his brother raped her.
The court heard he went to the teen’s mother with his wife and tried to bribe her so that she convinces her daughter to change her statement in court.
Mnkandla had pleaded not guilty to multiple counts of rape before regional magistrate Mr Chrispen Mberewere.
Mr Mberewere asked Mnkandla to recite Genesis 1 verse 1, Psalms 23 verse 1, John 3 verse 16 and John 14 verse 1.
Mnkandla drew chuckles from the gallery when he said John 3 verse 16 reads: “Let your hearts not be troubled,” yet it reads “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
He was completely clueless about Psalms 23 verse 1.
The magistrate convicted Mnkandla and sentenced him to 20 years in jail.
Prosecutors told the court that Mnkandla and his brother Lovemore (34) a pastor at the same church, raped the teen on different occasions.
The duo threatened that if she told anyone, the “demons they had exorcised from her would return with scores of others to haunt her.”
In her testimony, the teen said Lovemore raped her at Khami Mountains and Mnkandla raped her at his house.
“We went to the mountains for seven days with my father and Lovemore. My father was called back to work on the fourth day, leaving me with Lovemore. On our way home he dragged me into a nearby bush and raped me twice. He said if I told anyone, all the demons would return,” she said.
