Rape case against Nelson Chamisa withdrawn

Rape allegations against MDC leader Nelson Chamisa, which were filed by a 39-year-old woman, have been formally withdrawn after the accuser's mother told police she was mentally ill.

Nyaradzo Nyathi, the wife of a Central Intelligence Organisation agent currently on diplomatic service in Canada, made the report at Norton Police Station on February 28.

She told police that she was returning from jogging just before 10PM on November 8 last year when Chamisa waylaid her as she entered their home on Mtukudzi Drive in Knowe Phase 2, Norton.

She alleged Chamisa raped her inside the home she shares with her mother.

It has since emerged that Nyaradzo previously accused her husband, Herbert Garikai Nyathi, of raping her in Canada. Her increasingly erratic behaviour finally got her returned home.

ZimLive sources say after Nyaradzo's mother heard that she had filed a police report, she approached family friend, the Chief Cabinet Secretary Misheck Sibanda, and explained that her daughter was battling mental health problems. Police were subsequently engaged, and the case was withdrawn.

The MDC had taken the stance that the alleged rape was a dirty tricks campaign by the ruling Zanu-PF party, which is allegedly meddling in the MDC's internal elections due to be held during a congress in May.

MDC insiders say Chamisa has only ever been to Norton twice since elections last July – first to plant trees in December, and for Oliver Mtukuzi's funeral in January this year.

"Our security protocols do not allow the president to be outside, and as it would appear from the allegations, to be unguarded, at the hours being mentioned," an official familiar with Chamisa's diary said.