The ManicaPost
Tendai Gukutikwa Weekender Correspondent
A MUTARE teenager who made headlines early this year after being suspected of practising satanism was last week arraigned before the courts facing robbery charges after allegedly teaming up with his brother to rob a woman of her food and money. The 16-year-old who was in the company of his brother, Stallone Chingara (22) denied the charge when he appeared before senior Mutare magistrate, Mrs Sekai Chiundura last Thursday.
Stallone, however, admitted to the charge and was sentenced to four months imprisonment, of which one month was suspended on condition of good behaviour. Mr Fletcher Karombe prosecuted. The court heard that on July 5, the brothers assaulted and robbed Elizabeth Makaula of $30 cash, airtime recharge cards worth $50 and goods worth $60.
“Makaula was coming from town and going to her place of residence using the footbridge that connects Chancellor Primary School and Silver Oaks Mutare when she met the two and gave way for them to pass as they were heading towards the city,” said Mr Karombe.
He added: “After about 30metres from the footbridge, the suspects followed Makaula. Stallone kicked the complainant at the back and she fell down together with a sack which was full of food items.
“They started assaulting the complainant while she was on the ground and took her handbag which contained $30 cash; Buddie recharge cards worth $30, Telecel recharge cards worth $10, Netone recharge cards worth $10.
They sped off towards Silver Oaks. Makaula gave chase shouting for help and soldiers stationed at Silver Oaks gave chase and apprehended the suspects. The stolen property worth $90 was recovered. Responding to the allegations, Chingara told the court that they were under the influence of drugs when they committed the crime.
“Your Worship, we were under the influence of drugs and I do not know what I was doing. I was the only one who robbed this lady while my young brother looked on,” he said. Asked on where they had found the drugs, Chingara said some boys had given them. The minor was remanded out of custody to Wednesday in the custody of his mother.
Stallone will serve an effective three months imprisonment. In January this year, the teenager paid a $20 admission of guilty fine after he was found in possession of a sachet of mbanje.
This was after residents of Mutare’s Greenside low-density suburb had apprehended him with a satchel containing a skull of a dead animal, believed to be a dog, wrapped in a red and black cloth which the youngster admitted to be part of his Satanism paraphernalia
Police could not charge his over his involvement in satanism owing to lack of legal instruments that relate to one’s participation in that cult. The teenager confirmed being a fairly new recruit in the underworld of satanism and is going through an initiation period under the tutelage of his jailed brother, Stallone.
When he was nabbed in January, the teenager who was then doing Form Three at a Mutare college had absconded from school. When The Weekender interviewed in January, he also confirmed that he indeed had absconded from school.
“Nganga ndichitobva ku fazh na 1. Ndangouyawo kungo chillawo ipapo. Ava vabva vangondionawo. Vafungidzira kuti I am trespassing (I was just coming from school and I decided to take a rest here. They saw me and thought I was trespassing,’ he said.
Asked about his possession of the skull of a dead animal wrapped in a red and black cloth, the teenager said: “Musoro wembwa. It’s like a Satanism ritual. I am not yet full time into it but this is part of my early initiation to it. If you want to get finer details we can go and see my brother Stallone. He is the one who is leading me.
“I have not yet been given my reply. I am just following it together with my brother. It has not started working for me but I want to get fame out of it. That is why I am in it.”
