Koffi Olomide concerts cancelled in South Africa over rape saga

At least two South African venues have cancelled concerts by Congolese singer Koffi Olomide, who was recently convicted of the statutory rape of one of his former dancers when she was 15.

Olomide, 62, whose real name is Antoine Agbepa Mumba, had been due to play the Gallagher Convention Centre outside Johannesburg on June 28 and the Shimmy Beach Club in Cape Town two days later.

But protesters launched a social media campaign to stop the concerts due to his conviction.

“Kindly be advised the Koffi Olomide show… will not be taking place,” Gallagher Convention Centre chief executive Charles Wilson said in a statement on Wednesday.

Shimmy Beach “made the decision last week not to host the Koffi Olomide event that was being run by an outside promoter,” the club said on Twitter on Tuesday.

In March, a French court handed down a two-year suspended prison sentence to Olomide after a trial that he did not attend.

But it acquitted him of assault and kidnapping charges and the sexual assault of three other women at his house near Paris between 2002 and 2006.

Olomide was briefly jailed in DR Congo in 2016 for kicking one of his dancers and was given a suspended three-month prison sentence in 2012 for striking his producer.

He is also currently sought by Zambian police for striking a Rwandan photo-journalist in Lusaka in 2012.