On March 27, 2026, the Court of Appeal (CoA) overturned a High Court ruling and reinstated a 15-year prison sentence for Rivers Kakana, convicted of multiple rapes during a harrowing three-day ordeal in 2013.
The case revolves around the assaults on Segametsi Dochi in 2013. According to reports, Dochi visited Kakana’s home on 7th March 2013, to collect a debt he owed her. Instead of repaying her, Kakana lured her into the bush, where he threatened her with a knife and raped her. Over the following three days, he held her captive, subjecting her to further assaults at various locations near Nata Village and the Thabatshukudu cattlepost.
At the time of the charges, Kakana was 44 years old and unemployed. He was initially convicted on four counts of rape by the Nata Magistrate Court and sentenced to a total of 15 years in prison. However, the High Court later reduced this to a single conviction with a 10-year sentence, reasoning that the assaults over the three days constituted one continuous act of sexual gratification.
The State appealed this decision, and the CoA panel, comprising Justice Mercy Garekwe, Justice Tebogo Tau, and Justice Leatile Dambe, found the High Court’s ruling flawed. The court held that the intervals of many hours between assaults and the changes in location clearly established four separate criminal acts.
The Court emphasized that treating a prolonged period of detention and repeated assaults as a single offense would, in effect, reward the perpetrator for his heinous behavior. “The mere fact that the perpetrator and the victim remained in each other’s company for the continuous period during which the forced sexual intercourse occurred cannot, in any manner, be invoked to sustain the same conclusion.”
Justice Garekwe underscored that interpreting the close proximity of victim and perpetrator in this way ignores the undeniable truth that the victim was detained against her will throughout the entire period.
Moreover, the Court of Appeal pointed out a critical error in the High Court’s review. The High Court had improperly considered an unrelated affidavit concerning the 2017 abduction and rape of a six-year-old child. The CoA clarified that this incident involved a different victim and was irrelevant to Kakana’s 2013 case.
“It is therefore clear that all four incidents were separate, distinct, and different. Each time the Respondent formed a fresh intent to have sexual intercourse with the victim.”
With the High Court’s order overturned, the CoA dismissed Kakana’s appeal, confirming the original conviction and 15-year sentence. Kakana, who was absent at the appeal hearing despite attempts to serve him through his aunt in Nata Village, must now serve the remainder of his original sentence.