{"id":26493,"date":"2016-06-30T02:40:21","date_gmt":"2016-06-30T02:40:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/mgqumeni-impersonator-jailed-for-south-africa\/"},"modified":"2016-06-30T02:40:01","modified_gmt":"2016-06-30T02:40:01","slug":"mgqumeni-impersonator-jailed-for-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/mgqumeni-impersonator-jailed-for-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Mgqumeni impersonator jailed for South Africa rape"},"content":{"rendered":"

{A man who made headlines for impersonating a dead Zulu folk musician has been sentenced to 28 years in prison.}<\/p>\n

Sibusiso Gcabashe was found guilty of a string of charges, including kidnapping and raping an 18-year-old woman.<\/p>\n

Gcabashe was also convicted of impersonating Khulekani “Mgqumeni” Khumalo, who died in 2009.<\/p>\n

Thousands of fans flocked to his house in KwaZulu-Natal in 2012 believing he had been resurrected.<\/p>\n

He was an award-winning “Maskandi” musician.<\/p>\n

Three years after his death, Gcabashe returned to the singer’s hometown, claiming he had been kidnapped by a witchdoctor who had cast a spell on him and held him in a cave with zombies.<\/p>\n

His fingerprints proved he was not the singer, police said at the time.<\/p>\n

{{‘Singing to the cells’}}<\/p>\n

Gcabashe, 32, was found guilty of rape, assault, kidnapping, attempted escape from lawful custody and impersonating Khumalo.<\/p>\n

He underwent psychiatric evaluation during the course of his lengthy trial but was found fit to face justice, says the BBC’s Pumza Fihlani in Johannesburg.<\/p>\n

The magistrate who convicted Gcabashe said he didn’t show any remorse during the trial.<\/p>\n

Even Khumalo’s own family appeared split over his identity. While his wives believed he was their husband returned from the dead, a former lover was not convinced.<\/p>\n

Some of Khumalo’s family said they would appeal against the conviction in the High Court because they still believed Gcabashe was indeed their son, according to local reports.<\/p>\n

Belief in witchcraft is not uncommon in rural South Africa.<\/p>\n

The man apparently sang one of Khumalo’s song as he was being escorted to the police cells and said he would compose music in prison, according to SABC news.<\/p>\n

\"Gcabashe<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{A man who made headlines for impersonating a dead Zulu folk musician has been sentenced to 28 years in prison.} Sibusiso Gcabashe was found guilty of a string of charges, including kidnapping and raping an 18-year-old woman. Gcabashe was also convicted of impersonating Khulekani “Mgqumeni” Khumalo, who died in 2009. Thousands of fans flocked to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[100],"byline":[249],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-26493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-africa","byline-bbc"],"bylines":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"contributors":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26493"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26493\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26493"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=26493"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=26493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}