Rapist seeks to overturn 30-year sentence

Iuze Mukube

A resident of Katima Mulilo serving a 30-year prison sentence for rape is once again challenging his conviction and sentence, this time asking for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court.

The convict, Chizano Sisinzi, is seeking leave to appeal a High Court decision that dismissed his appeal in 2024, arguing that the Apex Court may arrive at a different conclusion from that of the High Court on his conviction and sentence.

Sisinzi stood charged on three counts of rape in 2015 in connection with allegedly raping a complainant three times at knife point. He was 22 years old at the time.

It was alleged that the convict, while the complainant was urinating in a bush area after drinking alcohol nearby a local bar, approached her, chased her down and raped her.

It is also alleged that the complainant tried to escape three times, but the convict allegedly chased her down and continued to rape her.

Sisinzi was convicted on 13 November 2020 and sentenced on 11 December 2020 on all three counts of rape in the Katima Mulilo Regional Court.

Magistrate Victor Nyazo, who presided over the matter, sentenced him to 15 years’ imprisonment on the first count of rape and a further 15 years’ imprisonment on each of the second and third counts, with the sentence on count three ordered to run concurrently with the sentence on count two.

The effective sentence was therefore 30 years’ imprisonment.

In 2023, he appealed against Nyazo’s decision, arguing that the magistrate did not properly consider that the complainant was a sole witness and there was no corroboration of her evidence.

Sisinzi argued that the magistrate did
not consider that the complainant’s testimony that she was raped two or three times without a condom was not corroborated with medical evidence suggesting unprotected sex.

He argued that the magistrate’s imposition of a harsh sentence of an effective period of 30 years induced a sense of shock.

In April 2025, High Court Judges Naomi Shivute and Dinah Usiku dismissed his appeal against conviction and sentence.

The judges found that there was no misdirecting on the magistrate in finding that the State had proven its case beyond reasonable doubt and convicting the appellant on charges of rape.

Additionally, the appellant’s personal circumstances did not warrant a deviation from the mandatory prescribed sentences as provided for in terms of the Combating of Rape Act 8 of 2000, ruled the judges.

Sisinzi has followed that decision by seeking leave to appeal to the Supreme Court.

He is arguing, among other things, that the High Court erred in that it failed to find that the lower court convicted him on a charge of rape on the mere say-so of the complainant.

He argues also that the Okapi knife he allegedly used to coerce the complainant was never produced in evidence, and there is no evidence before the court that he was in possession of said knife.

“That the court erred in the law and/or on the facts in that it failed to find that the state in the court a quo [regional court] had failed to prove its case against the appellant or applicant on the charge of rape by the criminal standard of proof required, proof beyond reasonable doubt, and on evidence presented that the appellant was the perpetrator of the offence of rape against the complainant.”

Additionally, he argues that the combined sentence of 30 years’ imprisonment in respect of counts of rape is shockingly inappropriate and startlingly heavier, given the circumstances of the case.

The matter is expected back in court on 19 October 2026 for Sisinzi’s legal counsel to come on record. 

–imukube@nepc.com.na

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