HARARE – Another week, more sensational sex abuse claims against Prophet Walter Magaya, and an even more emphatic denial from the alleged victim.
The Prophetic Healing and Deliverance Ministries church founder was accused Sunday of raping one woman and groping another, a week after facing similar allegations.
But the ink had not dried on The Sunday Mail, which published the latest allegations, before the alleged rape victim came out to deny the incident ever happened.
Sarah Maruta, in a recorded video, claimed she was an unwitting participant in an extortion plot engineered by Enisia Mashusha, a former Magaya congregant now living in the United Kingdom where she has styled herself as an advocate for women’s rights.
Mashusha was behind a video released last week, in which a Harare couple, Godfrey and Molly Maenzanise, claimed their 17-year-old daughter had been raped and impregnated by Magaya in 2013. The alleged victim, Chenai Maenzanise-Hassan, recorded a video in which she appeared with her husband, Christian, to deny the claims.
“Whoever came up with this is using it for their personal gain,” said Chenai.
The Sunday Mail reported on Sunday that Maruta and another woman, Charity Dlodlo, had walked into their offices and accused Magaya of sexually abusing them.
Dlodlo, a former Studio 263 actress now living in Malawi, told the Sunday Mail she used to work for Magaya before recounting a story in which she says Magaya groped her.
She was alone with him in his office when she claims he stood up from his chair, went behind her and then “kissed and touched my breasts”. She said she screamed, and Magaya had stopped.
Maruta, according to the Mail, was raped by Magaya resulting in a pregnancy. She said she aborted the baby after being admitted in a hospital following an attempted suicide, according to the newspaper.
Maruta told the Mail she received over US$100,000 from Magaya after her lawyer sent a letter of demand for compensation or pursuing a criminal prosecution in the alternative.
But in her recorded denial, Maruta claims it was Dlodlo working with Mashusha who led her to the Mail.
“Charity invited me to accompany her to the Sunday Mail to reinforce her abuse story so that it has more soup (sic) to the journalist,” Maruta says. “Charity and Enisia got in touch with me on Facebook, even offering me a ticket to London. They said we want to fight Prophet Magaya. When I refused, Charity then handed my number over to a journalist who invited me to the Sunday Mail and that’s how we ended up at their offices on Thursday.”
She claims she was coached on what to say and made to implicate people close to Magaya, including a “Jimmy” who is embroiled in a legal battle with Dlodlo.
Maruta claims she then became uncomfortable and tried to get the Mail to drop her name from their story, even asking her father to intervene.
“I told their editor that these things you want me to say about Prophet Magaya I know nothing about, it’s all a lie. I told them I did not want to be used,” she says.
Maruta said she was offered “state security for her protection” as the Mail refused to drop its story.
“I’m recording this video so that I speak directly to Zimbabweans. I’ve been dragged into something I know nothing about, something I’m not involved with. This will ruin my image,” Maruta said.
Sunday Mail deputy editor Ranga Mataire said an inappropriate approach had been made to the editor to drop the story in exchange for money.
“Can someone tell Walter Magaya that The Sunday Mail won’t be intimidated from executing its mandate as a national weekly newspaper of record. Our goal is to cover the news as impartially as possible without fear or favour,” Mataire said on Twitter.
Magaya’s church has refused to comment on the allegations insisting they are a personal matter. On Sunday, Magaya recorded a video from Dubai in which he appeared to address the allegations for the first time, and Thursday’s burning of his Harare hotel which is under police investigation.
“I’ve heard news,” he starts in the video broadcast during a Sunday church service and on his Yadah TV. “I’ve heard news of the hotel, I’ve heard news of different things. What I want to say to you is stand in the Lord, stand in the truth… may God reveal to us the truth in every sense. May God protect our interests in every sense.”