LIFE FOR CHURCH GANG RAPE

‘You showed no remorse’

A CONVICTED rapist who attacked and robbed five women at a Soweto church has denied the charges he was convicted for.

Magistrate Audrey Mpofu found Hileo Adriano Mhlanga, 31, guilty of two counts of rape, five of kidnapping, five of armed robbery and three of attempted rape in the Protea Regional Court yesterday.

Mpofu, who is also an acting judge in the South Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg, sentenced Mhlanga to an effective life term plus 75 years in jail. Mhlanga, however, maintained that he had only committed one rape and denied the others.

He maintained that he didn’t rape one of the victims twice and that he was forced to rape her by his two friends who were with him. His friends are still at large.

Mpofu said Mhlanga had deliberately participated in the crimes.

“You and your friends were brutal that night. You are cowards because men are expected to protect us as women, not harm us.

“You held women at ransom. In fact you held five helpless women against their will with a gun, hurting them.

“Many South Africans are Christians and even during apartheid, police did not chase people who fled to churches, but you had the guts to enter and rape. You also had guts to steal from the church.

“Your friends are not here today. You are alone to face the music. You have showed no remorse,” Mpofu said.

On the night of November 8 2014 in Meadowlands, Soweto, Mhlanga and two friends pounced on one of the victims who was in a toilet. The five women were having a night prayer service at the Methodist Church when one of them went to the toilet.

While there, she was pointed at with a firearm, assaulted and taken to a mobile container by Mhlanga and his co-accused.

There the woman was forced to lie on the ground and raped twice by Mhlanga’s accomplice before he too raped her twice.

The victim was taken back to the church, with the gun and a knife still pointed at her. Inside the church, the men began assaulting the other four women.

They then ransacked the church before fleeing with a bag filled with curtains, table clothes, ornaments and a car belonging to one of the victims.

Mhlanga, a Mozambican national, said he illegally entered the country in February 2012 by bribing border officials. He had earlier pleaded in mitigation that he was sorry for the rape.

“I don’t know what came over me to commit that offence. I am remorseful. I didn’t repeatedly rape one of the women, I only raped her once. I didn’t rob them.

“I regret this and ask for forgiveness because I was forced to commit the offences by my friends,” Mhlanga said.

State prosecutor Cheryl Slack, who called for a heavy sentence, said Mhlanga admitted to the rape after DNA evidence had linked him and also after all the complainants had pointed him out during an identity parade.

“I only raped her once. I didn’t rob them. I regret this. I ask for forgiveness