Rogue cops trial date set

THE trial of two Nyamandlovu traffic police officers, charged with abuse of duty as public officers after converting part of spot fines to personal use will get underway on April 11.

Shelton Chitakura (25) and Kudakwashe Chimombe (33) were not asked to plead to criminal abuse of office when they appeared before Bulawayo magistrate Tinashe Tashaya.

The court heard that on March 10 this year at 7:49am, the two were manning a roadblock at the 38km peg along Bulawayo-Nyamandlovu Road when they stopped a Nissan Caravan, which was being driven by Edmore Mashiri, who was in the company of his wife Minenhle and two passengers – Joel Mugomeni and Miss Mabhikwa.

The two officers told Mashiri that he had violated the Road Traffic Act for mixing goods and passengers because there were groceries in the motor vehicle.

It is alleged that they ordered him to pay $10 fine which he handed over to Chitakura, who completed the Z69 (j) receipt and instead of endorsing $10 on all the copies he allegedly only endorsed $10 on the duplicate copy and made Mashiri to sign being witnessed by Chimombe.

The duplicate copy was handed to Mashiri as proof of payment.

The State alleges that after Mashiri left, the two endorsed $5 on the remaining original triplicate and fast copies of the Z69 (j) and also forged Mashiri's signature on the accused's portion and thereafter converted the other $5 to their own use.

They later surrendered the other $5 to their station against the original copy.

After leaving the roadblock, Mashiri noticed that the customer copy receipt he had been issued was not a carbon copy which raised his suspicion and as such he raised the query with the police complaints desk.

Investigations conducted then led to the arrest of the two officers.