YOUR honour, that man is my wife!”
An inmate serving 18 years for murder and rape stunned a packed courtroom with the above statement after he was accused of sodomising a fellow inmate serving 15 years for rape at Khami Maximum Prison.
Young Zvidzai (46) allegedly threatened to make the 29-year-old’s life a living hell in a six-year anal rape nightmare at the prison.
The court heard Zvidzai had been giving relish, toiletries and cigarettes to his victim since 2010.
He said he even drew 10 tattoos on the man’s body and asked for anal sex as payment for the favours.
In December 2016, Zvidzai allegedly fondled, kissed the fellow inmate after dragging him into his cell and had anal intercourse with him.
Zvidzai pleaded not guilty to aggravated indecent assault before Bulawayo regional magistrate Mr Joseph Mabeza, who remanded him to today for continuation of trial.
In his defence Zvidzai initially said he was not gay and was not even interested in men.
“I am a married man with three children and I would never lust for a man. I am serving my term while waiting to reunite with my family,” he said.
He later said: “I did not force myself on him. He is my wife as we have been having consensual sex since 2010.”
“I drew more than 10 tattoos on him and since he had no money he paid with sex,” he said.
The complainant said Zvidzai threatened him saying he was born and raised in Bulawayo and no one refused his advances.
“He offered to draw tattoos on my body and I paid for those tattoos because he raped me,” he said.
An inmate who testified said he found Zvidzai on top of the complainant and he alerted the warders.
“They were having sex, the way dogs do,” he said.
Prosecuting, Tinashe Dzipe said the two inmates met in 2010.
“On December 10, 2016, Zvidzai went to the complainant’s cell and instructed the other inmates to leave the cell. He took the complainant to his cell where he had hung blankets on the wall like curtains. Zvidzai fondled and kissed the complainant. He forcibly laid him on the floor, smeared petroleum jelly on his thighs and allegedly had anal sexual intercourse with him,” Mr Dzipe said.
The court heard that he ejaculated on the man’s scrotum.