Johannesburg -- A convicted child rapist's case has been postponed in the Nelspruit Magistrate's Court for the 70th time in four years, Beeld newspaper reported on Thursday.
As with his previous court appearances, when Andries Mfana Sibiya, 55, was pushed into court in a wheelchair on Wednesday, he threw himself to the floor and rolled around, eventually coming to a halt in front of the dock.
Sibiya, a lay preacher with his own sect, raped a 13-year-old girl from 1998 to 2007 and fathered three children with her.
He told the court during his trial that God had ordered him to father children so his family could, one day, go to heaven.
He was found guilty on April 2 2008 on nine charges of rape, and had been in custody since then.
During the past four years, sentencing had repeatedly been postponed because of Sibiya's claims of illness.
He had also on several occasions started hunger strikes shortly before his court appearances, and then claimed to be too ill to appear.
The case was postponed to April 4, because a state-employed doctor who was supposed to testify about Sibiya's health, failed to arrive at court.
