Where four young suspects had been witnessing the last stages of their gang-rape trial from a dock in the High Court this week, only one will remain when the sentencing phase of the trial starts today.

For three of the four youthful suspects who were charged with gang-raping a 17-year-old girl at Onguti Secondary School in the Ondangwa district on November 28 2003, their trial ended yesterday with an acquittal by Judge Mavis Gibson.

For the fourth, the 22-year-old Lazarus Thomas Kaunda, who was 18 years old at the time of the alleged gang rape, the trial is set to continue today, after Judge Gibson found him guilty on one count of rape.

Kaunda and his co-accused, two of whom were 17 years old at the time of the incident, with the third then 16 years old, each faced four counts of rape.

The prosecution alleged that except for each of them raping the girl himself, they also each helped their co-accused to rape her.

The four pleaded not guilty to all charges when their trial started before Judge Gibson on July 25 2006.

During the trial, the girl at the centre of the charges testified that the four youngsters in the dock had each raped her in a storeroom next to a classroom at the school where they were all pupils at the time.

With the court having heard that the first investigator working with the case never had forensic tests done on potentially crucial evidence in the case - torn panties and three used condoms which were found in the storeroom after a charge was laid with the Police - Judge Gibson commented towards the end of her judgement that the investigation of the case was "far from diligent" and in her opinion quite lackadaisical.

The upshot of Judge Gibson's verdict is that the prosecution has failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a gang rape took place as claimed.

The Judge accepted, though, that it had been proven that Kaunda had sexual intercourse with the girl under coercive circumstances.

Kaunda was the only one of the four accused to admit that he had sex with the girl on the evening in question.

He told the court that he and the girl were in a relationship, that he found the girl in a classroom at the school, and that he then called her into an adjacent storeroom with him.

There, Kaunda claimed, he asked her if he could "sleep with" her, and when she agreed, they had intercourse, Judge Gibson recounted in her judgement.

According to the girl, though, she and Kaunda had been in a relationship only for some three months earlier in 2003.

Judge Gibson said in her view the girl must have been unprepared for the ferocity of Kaunda's demands to have intercourse with her.

She noted that the girl was preparing for examinations that she had to write two days after the incident, and when Kaunda called her into the storeroom, she must have expected a chat and discussion, but nothing more, from him.

He however ended up ignoring her refusal to have sex with him, subdued her and had intercourse with her in circumstances that were far from consensual, Judge Gibson found.

As for the allegations against the other three accused, the Judge noted that the girl claimed that she had screamed while she was being sexually violated by the four.

However, two other witnesses who testified in the trial told the court that if she had screamed, other pupils who were studying in a next-door classroom would have heard her, the Judge also noted.

When a medical doctor examined the girl after that, she found some injuries on her private parts, but formed the opinion that these were not necessarily an indication that she had been raped.

The doctor also told the court that she did not find other injuries, which would have been evidence of resistance having been put up by the girl and which she would have expected especially if four young men had gang-raped the girl as claimed, the Judge further noted.

The doctor also told the court that she was struck by the lack of distress on the part of the girl and how calm she appeared to still be after an alleged gang rape that must have been a devastating experience, the Judge recounted.

She concluded that there was some doubt that the girl had been gang-raped by the four suspects charged in the case.

Kaunda is set to return to court today for the hearing of evidence and arguments before he is set to be sentenced.

He is represented by defence lawyer Frieda Kishi.

Bradley Basson represented the three acquitted accused.

State advocate Sandra Miller is prosecuting.

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