HARARE - Choking was the final straw which broke a woman who had been tortured and tormented by her husband for more than seven years.
As the Harare woman (name withheld) took the stand in the Harare Civil Court on Friday to recount a victim impact statement during her application for a peace order against her husband Charles Munyaradzi, he remained defiant.
“She told me that she is going to fabricate allegations against me,” Munyaradzi said from the dock. “The problem is that she suspects that I am having extra-marital affairs.
“I saw a message in her mobile phone where she was telling a boyfriend not to call her because I was around. If I ask her she threatens me saying she is going to tell the police that I raped her.”
She told the court that her husband raped her before marrying her and she is now suffering extended abuse in the marriage.
The woman told Harare Civil Court magistrate Gamuchirai Siwardi that besides raping her, he harasses her all the time.
The disgruntled woman told the court that she no longer loved the abusive man. “The respondent (Munyaradzi) was my guardian and he raped me and later married me,” said the woman.
“I stayed with this man for seven years but there is no love between us because he abuses me all the time.
“I sired four children for him thinking maybe he will change his behaviour but he has not changed.
“He follows me at my workplace and harasses me. He assaults me and recently he strangled me, threatening to kill me. He told me that he wanted to kill me.”
Munyaradzi refuted his wife’s allegations saying she was lying before the honourable court.
Magistrate Siwardi ordered Munyaradzi to stop abusing his wife in any way or risk being arrested for marital rape.