Omotoso has 63 charges against him including racketeering, rape, sexual assault and human trafficking. (Lulama Zenzile/Foto24/Gallo Images/Getty Images)
The rape trial of controversial televangelist Timothy Omotoso has been postponed to April 16 pending the outcome of his Constitutional Court application to compel the judge presiding over his case to recuse himself.
Omotoso appeared briefly before the Eastern Cape high court on Monday alongside his two Lusanda Sulani and Zukiswa Sitho.
The trial was postponed to February 4 in December 2018 pending the decision of the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) where he had applied to have the judge presiding over his case recuse himself.
The SCA dismissed Omotoso’s application. It also dismissed Omotoso’s application to have the charges against him dismissed.
Omotoso has 63 charges against him including racketeering, rape, sexual assault and human trafficking. He has refused to plead to all the charges. He has been appearing in court alongside two co-accused, Lusanda Sulani and Zukiswa Sitho.
He is accused of trafficking more than 30 girls and women from the three branches of his church, Jesus Dominion International, to a house in Umhlanga, KwaZulu-Natal, where he allegedly sexually abused them.
Forty-nine witnesses have been called to testify in the trial.
Peter Daubermann — Omotoso’s lawyer — applied twice in 2018 for Judge Mandela Makaula to recuse himself from the trial, saying that his client has no chance of a fair trial.
This comes after Dauberman accused Makaula of being biased in favour of Cheryl Zondi, the first witness to testify. Omotoso’s legal team also accused the judge of having made up his mind about the outcome of the trial before even hearing the televangelists side of the story.
In an affidavit submitted by Dauberman, he criticised Makaula saying he has “allowed” his “humanity” to get the better of him. Dauberman also said Makaula already believed Zondi’s version of events which is why the trial could not continue with the judge at the helm.
“A judge cannot display even the slightest display of prejudice,” Daubermann said at the time.
Makaula dismissed the application requesting him to recuse himself, saying Omotoso’s counsel did not provide him with compelling reasons why he should not preside over the trial.
“It is ridiculous in the extreme to assume that I had accepted Miss Zondi’s version of events before the accused has testified,” Makaula said.