Online Reporter
Tendai Gukutikwa
Weekender Reporter
A HAUNA man has admitted sleeping with his best friend’s wife, claiming the relationship began after she made sexual advances, sparking a dramatic love triangle.
Testifying before Chief Mutasa’s community court last Saturday, Luke Marikano, confessed to the affair with Beauty Manyumwa, but insisted it did not start by choice.
“Indeed, her husband is my best friend. Our families are closely linked — his son married my daughter, and Manyumwa was also very close to my wife. It all began after people spread rumours that we were having an affair,” Marikano told the court, explaining that the relationship later developed under contested circumstances.
Marikano said he was initially bewildered by how the situation unfolded.
“I do not even know how it all started. We were just friends at first, but then things changed. I was a businessman, making coffins and supplying many people, so I was financially stable,” he said.
He added that the turning point came after his own marriage collapsed.
“One time, my wife left me after hearing the rumour, and Manyumwa called me to her home. She told me that people were saying we were in love,” Marikano recounted, adding that what followed was unexpected.
“She suggested that we should start dating. I refused, telling her it was wrong because her husband was my best friend. But she grabbed me and forced herself on me.
“We struggled, and in the end, I gave in. I did not want it, but she forced me,” Marikano said, distancing himself from claims that he had impregnated Manyumwa.
He denied responsibility for the pregnancy at the centre of the dispute.
“That pregnancy they are talking about is not mine. I never impregnated her. From what I knew, her husband had not been intimate with her for years,” he added.
Despite his claims about how the affair began, Marikano admitted the relationship continued.
“We ended up seeing each other on several occasions. It became something that happened more than once, even though it started in a way I did not agree with,” he said.
Manyumwa, however, gave a different version, acknowledging the affair, but rejecting Marikano’s claim that she forced him.
“My husband and I married in 1991, and things were fine at first. But in 2018, our marriage began to change. I fell in love with Marikano. The first time we were intimate, it happened at his place,” she said.
She admitted initiating the relationship, but emphasised mutual responsibility.
“I forced him at first, but we are both adults. We knew what we were doing,” she said, maintaining that her husband was the father of the child in question.
Her husband, Godfrey Bangira, who brought the matter before the court, described the affair as a deep betrayal.
“Luke Marikano was my best friend and neighbour. One day, he came to me and said there were rumours that he was having an affair with my wife. I
“I told him that if it was true, the truth would eventually come out. I even warned him that if they were cheating, they should not get caught because I would deal with them decisively,” said Bangira.
He added that Marikano’s behaviour changed soon after, fuelling his suspicions.
Bangira also revealed that his marriage had been strained for years.
“One day at the farm, my wife told me she was not tired of farming, but of sleeping with a poor man like me. Later, I got a job that kept me away during the week, and for two years she refused intimacy.
“I kept having dreams in which my daughter told me someone was sleeping with my wife. When she later said she was pregnant, I knew the child could not be mine,” he said.
After hearing the testimonies, Chief Mutasa ruled that Manyumwa must compensate Marikano’s wife with either two beasts or US$700, while Marikano must compensate Bangira with three beasts for engaging in the affair.
