Tsvangirai aide's $200,000 request granted

High Court judge Hlekani Mwayera yesterday granted MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai's spokesperson Luke Tamborinyoka's application for an amendment of his claim into United States dollars.

Tamborinyoka - demanding $200 000 compensation from the State after he was allegedly brutally attacked by Harare Central Police Station-based cops in 2007 - seeks to have police commissioner-general Augustine Chihuri and other officials held accountable.

The trained journalist is pursuing the application, initially lodged in 2007, and is now seeking the court to amend the papers for the claim to be made in United States dollars.

When he initially made the application, Tamborinyoka was seeking Z$20 billion, but now wants it to be substituted with $200 000.

His lawyer Charles Kwaramba yesterday confirmed that the application had been granted in Tamborinyoka's favour and had not been contested by the State.

"The amendment has been granted by the court," Kwaramba said yesterday.

In the application, Tamborinyoka cited Home Affairs minister Ignatius Chombo, Chihuri, assistant commissioner Musarashana Mabunda, police officers only identified as J Chani and Kambanje, and the officer-in-charge CID Law and Order, as respondents.

He argued that his application for amendment was premised on the basis that the Zimbabwean dollar is no longer legal tender, since adoption of the multi-currency system in 2009.

The incident leading to the current litigation took place in March 2007, when police made a surprise raid of MDC headquarters, Harvest House in the Harare CBD, and arrested Tamborinyoka together with several others.

"At the time of the arrest, no warrant of arrest had been issued against plaintiff (Tamborinyoka). Plaintiff had not committed any offence. He was neither in the act of committing nor on the verge of committing an offence. There was no reasonable suspicion that plaintiff had committed or was about to commit any offence," Tamborinyoka said in his court papers.

He said he was not informed of the reasons for the arrest, but was subsequently charged, resulting in him spending two-and-a-half-months in remand prison.

The charges against him were subsequently dropped and he claims that his arrest was therefore unlawful.

Before his release, he had been subjected to interrogations and assaults by police officers.

"The assailants, who were more than five in number, were using a baseball stick, metal objects, open hands, fists, booted feet and all sorts of weaponry.

"Plaintiff together with fellow detainees was forced to lie on their bellies facing the floor. They were made to make different noises resembling nocturnal animals and birds," Tamborinyoka said.