A Congolese pastor who raped five of his congregants and impregnated one of them has been sentenced to 37 years imprisonment.
Bafomba Willy Emeka was sentenced in the Pretoria High Court. The court ordered that his name be added to the National Register for Sexual Offenders.
Emeka was also declared unfit to possess a firearm.
NPA North Gauteng Regional spokesperson Lumka Mahanjana said Emeka was charged with 19 counts of rape, three counts of sexual assault, being in South Africa illegally and possession or using falsified permanent residence permit.
“Emeka committed all the rapes and sexual assaults offences to five women who were members of his congregation, between 2015 and 2018 in and around Bronkhorstspruit,” she said.
Victim told she won’t be able to conceive
The court heard how in raping and sexually assaulting the women, Emeka used the same modus operandi.
Mahanjana said he would tell them that they had a problem and that he needed to pray for them and bless them in order for him to help them.
Emeka told one of his victims, who was assisting with babysitting his children, that sleeping with him would help her remove things that were inside her.
He said until those things came out she would not be able to conceive.
“This continued from 2016 until 2018 until the women stopped attending the church after Emeka while at church told the congregation that he is the one that made her pregnancy disappear,” Mahanjana said.
One of Emeka’s victims fell pregnant. Because of the rape, the woman could not tell who the father of her child was between the pastor and her husband.
The DNA results to determine who the father was were not yet out when the woman testified in court.
Emeka was arrested in 2018 after his victims reported him to one other pastor in the church who then encouraged them to report the matter to the police.