JAILED serial rapist, pastor and founder of RMG Independent End Time Message Church Robert Martin Gumbura, who is serving a 40-year jail term for raping his congregants, yesterday submitted an application for bail pending appeal at the Harare Magistrates’ Court. Senior court Reporter Gumbura’s lawyer Rekai Maphosa submitted a written application urging the court to consider granting her client bail, arguing Gumbura would not flee the jurisdiction of the courts and was a proper candidate for bail pending appeal.
However, prosecutor Valerie Ngoma told regional magistrate Hosea Mujaya that the prosecutor dealing with Gumbura’s matter, Jonathan Murombedzi, would respond to Gumbura’s application tomorrow after receiving a transcribed court record.
The matter was postponed to Friday this week when Mujaya is expected to give a determination on the application by the man of the cloth. Gumbura (56) was initially slapped with a 50-year prison term before 10 years were suspended on condition of good behaviour.
He was also sentenced to four months for possessing pornographic material.
In passing sentence after a month-long trial, Mujaya castigated Gumbura’s “fall from grace” for converting a worshipping place into a sexual palace where women had been turned into sexual objects and likened him to a bull at his Mayenga Farm in Chinhoyi.
