HARARE – A self-styled prophetess has been arrested for violating a corpse after taking a body from the mortuary of a funeral parlour and vainly attempting to perform a resurrection, police said on Wednesday.
Apostle Ruramai Nhapata, 59, of Trinity International Fellowship Ministry was arrested together with one Smoller Chazireni, 43, over the September 27 incident.
The pair went to a Nyaradzo Funeral Parlour along Willowvale Road where they told stunned staff that Gift Takudzwa Shiriyapenga, whose body had been taken there from a Harare hospital after he suddenly collapsed at home was still alive.
Nhapata and Zhazireni forcibly took Shiriyapenga’s body and “they began to pray while massaging the body as well as stretching the hands and legs,” said Assistant Commissioner Paul Nyathi in a statement.
“The body spent the whole night on the floor outside the mortuary while the suspects were praying for the resurrection of the victim.”
Earlier, Nhapata told H-Metro newspaper that she was “exercising her faith.”
“I’m prepared not only to be arrested, but even to be imprisoned for doing God’s work,” Nhapata said, while claiming to have brought 10 other people, who had been declared dead, back to life.
Nhapata was not related to Shiriyapenga, neither was he a member of her church.
