Lawyers representing Chiundura MP Livingstone Chiminan yesterday tore into Gweru police over their conduct in dealing with a case in which the legislator is accused of assault.
Chimina together with a Gweru City Council employee, Charles Machangira, and bus company supervisor Leticia Mteliso, are accused of assaulting three Zanu PF activists who stormed Kudzanayi long distance bus terminus on Thursday and illegally collected ranking fees from transport operators.
The trio’s lawyers, Shepherd Robert Mafa and Wellington Davira, told magistrate Beauty Dube that it was the complainants who must actually be standing as the accused persons for extortion.
“They (complainants) collected money from buses illegally at the rank and were never arrested. However, when our clients apprehended one of them in a civil arrest manner and handed him to the police, the cops surprisingly refused to take their report saying the case was political,” Davira said.
“However, when the complainants made their false report of assault, the police immediately arrested our clients. There are no medical reports for the complainants to show any injuries they sustained from the, so called assaults — the charges are trumped up.”
Prosecutor Bernard Nyoni was taken to task by magistrate Dube on why police detained the female accused person and allowed the others to go home later in the night when they all faced a similar offence.
With the consent of the state, magistrate Dube gave free bail to the trio and remanded them to January 25.
— Brenna Matendere
