RBZ employee wrongfully convicted

The state has made a major climb down, conceding that former Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) employee, Joseph Banda was wrongfully convicted.

The surprising development took place at the High Court before Justice Francis Bere and Justice Tagu, where Mrs Sharon Fero from the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) back-tracked by filing a notice conceding that Banda was wrongfully convicted by regional magistrate, William Bhila for allegedly committing 15 counts of fraud against the RBZ and two of deliberately lying to a public authority.

Dumisani Mthombeni, counsel for Banda who had appealed against the whole judgement by Mr Bhila applauded the state for making what he termed ‘a proper and informed concession given the nature of the matter.'

Mrs Fero told the bench that her concession to the fact that Banda was wrongfully convicted emanated from the position that where it was earlier alleged that Banda was masquerading as a Rtd Assistant Commissioner in the police and a war veteran, there were no steps taken to disprove his defence that he was operating as an undercover agent for the RBZ and the ZRP Gold Unit.

She added that the lower court should have used the provisions of section 232 of the Criminal Procedure and Evidence Act chapter 9:07 to subpoena ex-RBZ Governor, Gideon Gono and Police Commissioner General Chihuri to disprove the truth.

She also told the court that section 18 of the Criminal Law Codification and Reform Act chapter 9:23 was not satisfied, hence the conviction was not safe.

The court deferred proceedings to Thursday next week where it will deliver its judgement at 10am.

Justices Bere and Tagu accused Savious Kufandada, an investigator from the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC) of overzealousness in the conduct of his investigations and said there was no justification for him taking the appellant's farming implements.

They added that the evidence of Dr Munyaradzi Kereke, which intimated that Banda's memoranda to Dr Gono were not authentic and that all equipment under the agriculture mechanisation programme was issued in strict compliance of the RBZ communication chain was unbelievable given the thousands of rural people who also got scotch carts and other related implements without applying for them.

Justice Bere commended Mrs Fero for adequately demonstrating all areas of concern in her concession and raised concern over the failure by the investigating officer to comply to an order of the court to return Banda's equipment.