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LIBERTY Mudyiwa sits miserably throughout the day watching his ailing parents going about their daily chores.
In pain, he also watches his siblings loitering around at a time when their peers are at school.
Mudyiwa, who is now confined to Witchhood Bulk M Farm in Mutorashanga, wishes he could help.
The 22-year-old, who recently returned from Hwahwa Young Offenders’ Prison near Gweru, has been “imprisoned” forever.
Amid intermittent sobs, he tells the sad story of how his time in jail changed his life for the worst.
His is a story of how prisoners are abused in Zimbabwe’s jails by officers who are never punished for their crimes against prisoners.
“I left home on my two feet, hoping that after serving my sentence, I would come back to assist my parents in caring for my siblings,” Mudyiwa says.
“I never thought I would be punished beyond the sentence given to me by the court.”
In 2004 a Bindura magistrate convicted Mudyiwa, then 17, for rape and sentenced him to 10 years’ imprisonment.
The then Grade VII pupil at Caesar Mine Primary School in Mutorashanga was relieved when the sentence was reduced to eight years.
But the relief was short-lived. While serving at Hwahwa, Mudyiwa was allegedly forced to carry a heavy log which led to his paralysis.
“We had just finished working in the garden when the Principal Prison Officer told us to go and clean tanks used for preserving the officers’ beer,” he recalls.
He alleges that the officer he identified then forced him and another inmate to carry a heavy log.
“I told him that the log was too heavy for me but he threatened to beat me so I carried it,” he said. “As we walked, I felt sharp pain from the shoulder down to the back.”
The officer ignored him when Mudyiwa complained to him about the pain. “On dropping the log, I also fell down and my whole body went numb. I later learnt that I had been paralysed and my joints had dislocated.”
X-rays conducted at Thornhill Airbase and Gweru General Hospital confirmed Mudyiwa’s hip had been dislocated and his spinal cord damaged.
He was advised to urgently go to Parirenyatwa Hospital for an operation. In both cases, he was taken back to prison.
“Officers gave me sleeping tablets so I could sleep all day,” Mudyiwa said.
When he was taken into a Harare-bound prison truck on January 15, 2008, Mudyiwa thought he was finally being taken to Parirenyatwa.
Instead he was transferred to Harare Central Prison. Another prison doctor attended to him. He was given more sleeping tablets.
The prison doctor ignored Mudyiwa’s questions on why he was not being taken to Parirenyatwa.
Prison officers Mudyiwa had befriended at Harare Central helped inform relatives and parents about his condition.
They came after 12 days. Mudyiwa’s parents were told there was no ambulance. Their offer of using their own transport was turned down.
He was finally taken to Parirenyatwa on February 6, 2008 in a prison ambulance.
All appeared on track at Parirenyatwa after doctors ordered him not to eat in preparation for an operation the following morning. The operation did not take place because the ZPS had not paid the doctors’ fees.
His parents sold all their livestock to raise the money, but were told not to bother because the ZPS would pay.
“My father wept because he had sold all his livestock thinking he could do something to help me,” Mudyiwa explained.
He was taken back to Hwahwa.
Attempts by some doctors to secure his release hit a brick wall after his prison documents “disappeared”.
He was moved to Harare in February last year.
From May 2009 up to his release on February 6, 2010, Mudyiwa was confined to a small cell.
Now confined to a wheelchair at home, he is battling a lot of problems.
His mother suffered a stroke while his father broke his rib in an accident.
The only assistance he got was a wheelchair from St George’s College in Harare. Last week the wheelchair broke down.
The Zimbabwe Association for Crime Prevention and Rehabilitation of the Offender is aware of Mudyiwa’s plight.
When Mudyiwa was released from prison, the organisation wanted to take him home but they were blocked by the prison officers who attempted to keep everything under wraps.
The prison officers took him home instead, raising suspicions.
ZPS acting spokesperson Priscilla Mutembu last month confirmed Mudyiwa was injured in their custody.
Last week she asked questions to be faxed to her, but she had not responded by the time of going to press.
Zacro chief executive Edson Chihota said: “The ZPS must honour its promise to help him. He does not have anyone to assist him.”
BY JENNIFER DUBE
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