The ManicaPost
Melody Vherenaisi
Weekender Reporter
A Mutare man who demands to be treated like a demi-god has forced his wife to file for a peace order against him.
The matter was heard at the Mutare Magistrates Civil Court before Mr Xavier Chipato.
Colleta Musenga said her husband Lawrence Kusena is always assaulting her.
She also said he threatens her with death whenever they have a misunderstanding.
“He is always looking for trouble and assaulting me for no reason. At times when he comes across me and my friends, he tells them that he is going to assault and cripple me when we get home,” said Musenga.
She said is no longer interested in the marriage as her life is under threat.
“I want us to separate peacefully so that can I go to my parent’s house.
“I want him barred from assaulting, insulting, harassing and threatening me,” she said.
Musenga also told the court that Kusena is in the habit of stalking her and causing violence at her parents’ house in the presence of her relatives and children. She said Kusena destroys her parents’ property and assaults her relatives.
“I sometimes flee to my parents’ house to seek refuge but he follows me there to cause commotion and destroy their property. He attacks me and my relatives. At one point he dragged my 60-year-old-grandmother out of the house. She got injured on her left arm and had to be hospitalized for a month.
“He was trying to forcibly take our two-week-old baby from her,” said Musenga.
She also said Kusena demands to be treated like a demi-god.
“He tells me that he is a man and I should therefore bow down before him. He says when we pray we say ‘Our father . . . ” He takes that to mean that men are more superior to women. He tells me that even if he is wrong, I should praise him and do whatever he instructs me to do without questioning him,” said Musenga.
However, Kusena denied the allegations.
He said as a couple, they have only had one misunderstanding in their 12 years of marriage.
“I have been married to her for 12 years now and I have never assaulted, threatened, insulted or harassed her.
“The only misunderstanding we ever had was after she had gone to seek spiritual deliverance from a prophet but couldn’t tell me what the prophet had told her,” said Kusena.
Despite Kusena’s arguments, Mr Chipato granted the peace order in Musenga’s favour.
The peace order bars Kusena from insulting, harassing, assaulting and threatening his wife.
He was also barred from approaching his in-laws’ homestead for the purposes of disturbing their peace.
The peace order will be valid for five years.
