Pretoria - There seems to still be a long legal road ahead in the rape and sexual offences trial of Rivers of Living Waters church leader, Bishop Bafana Stephen Zondo.
The trial was due to resume yesterday, but it had to be postponed for at least a week due to translation problems.
Zondo’s defence team earlier objected to the translation by a court interpreter of the evidence presented by the alleged third victim, who took the stand in the Gauteng High Court in Pretoria.
Advocate Piet Pistorius noted at least three instances in which he claimed the interpreter did not correctly interpret the evidence presented by the woman.
Judge Papi Mosopa at the time ordered that the discs containing the woman’s evidence had to to be reviewed by the court’s chief interpreter, who was supposed to report yesterday on his findings.
He, however, indicated that he needed more time.
While the alleged victim has concluded her main evidence, she still has to be questioned by Zondo’s legal team.
Pistorius told the judge that it was not an ideal situation to have the witness in limbo while she and everyone else were waiting for the chief interpreter to establish whether her evidence was correctly translated.
The prosecution indicated that if the trial could not go ahead at this stage, the earliest possible date they could get on the criminal court roll to return to court is only sometime in May. The trial was set to run at this stage until November 11.
In postponing the case to next Monday, the judge ordered that if the evidence had not been reviewed by then, the chief interpreter had to come and explain in person to the court when it would be concluded.
This witness, the third alleged victim, is the forth out of 26 witnesses to take the stand since the trial commenced last year.
Zondo earlier pleaded not guilty to 10 charges, eight of which are rape charges.
While he did not provide an explanation of his plea, it was clear from the defence’s line of questioning of the first three witnesses that it believes the charges were trumped-up in a bid to extort money from the wealthy preacher.
The first woman who took the stand claimed she was 7-years old when she was raped by the then teenage Zondo.
According to her, she was afraid of him and had therefore carried her “dark secret” for nearly four decades before going public with it.
Another testified that in 2008 Zondo raped her at a hotel in Johannesburg.
According to the indictment, he allegedly raped two more women in Evaton, where his church is based, in 2013 and 2015.
He is accused of raping another victim in 2016 and and other woman two years later.
Some victims claimed they were raped more than once.
Zondo said his defence would become clear as the trial progressed.
Only a handful of his supporters were in court yesterday, while very few stood outside and sang some praise songs as he exited the court building.
Pretoria News