A man has been found guilty of raping and killing a British lodge owner in South Africa after six years on the run.
Andrea Imbayarwo, 32, was found guilty of the rape and murder at Limpopo High Court in the city of Polokwane in a ruling made yesterday, on the19th April.
The court found that Imbayarwo, a Zimbabwean national, attacked and killed British woman Christine Robinson, 59, at Rra Ditau lodge in the town of Thabazimbi in the South African province of Limpopo on 30th July 2014.
Robinson, an ex-teacher from Speke in Merseyside, ran the lodge where the defendant worked at the time.
Living illegally in South Africa, Imbayarwo was employed under the name Andrew Ndlovu, according to local media.
Police reports said the victim struggled with the attacker, suffering wounds to her arms and hands, before being raped and stabbed to death in her bedroom.
Robinson was found half-naked and wrapped in a bloodstained duvet with her throat cut at the lodge she managed alone following her husband’s death.
She was found by concerned workers who broke down her locked door when they failed to wake her up.
When the police arrived on the scene, Imbayarwo was the only staff member who was missing from the lodge.
After killing Robinson, Imbayarwo then fled to Zimbabwe and remained on the run for six years until his arrest in the suburb of Crosby in Johannesburg.
Judge Marisa Naude-Odendaal said the prosecutors’ account of the events was consistent with police evidence and witness testimonies, concluding that it was improbable that Imbayarwo was in a relationship with Robinson and had consensual intercourse with him before being killed as he had claimed.
