Komichi trial in false start

The trial of MDC-T deputy chairperson Morgan Komichi, who is facing allegations of contravening the country's electoral laws, failed to kick off on Thursday after his lawyer said the State had not provided them with adequate evidence they need to use in their defence.

Komichi, through his lawyer Mr Obey Shava, asked the State to provide them with V11 forms from the 2018 harmonised elections and the minutes of the meeting in which Komichi allegedly lied about the source of an envelope containing ballot papers that were picked up at the Harare International Conference Centre (HICC).

The defence counsel placed the State on notice that they will make an application for a court order directing it to furnish them with the evidence according to Section 177 of the Criminal Procedure and Evidence Act.

Prosecuting, Mr Michael Reza told the court that it will oppose the application because the evidence that Mr Shava is requesting is not necessary in the case.

"Your worship, the defence did not even bother to approach the court about this evidence during those two weeks. Even if they had, the State would have opposed as the documents are not necessary for this trial. The accused (Komichi) is being charged with a crime that deals with interruption therefore it has nothing to do with the V11 forms that they requested. As for the minutes of the meeting, the accused was part of that meeting therefore I am sure there is a way he can attain those minutes," he said.

The presiding magistrate, Mr Elisha Singano said that he would allow the application to be made on October 25 and the State to respond on October 30. He also said that the ruling on the application will be made on November 1 to enable the trial to continue.

The State alleged that on July 25, ZEC officials were in a meeting in a committee room at the Harare International Conference Centre. Komichi, allegedly, approached ZEC deputy director of public relations Tendai Pamire and told him he had an issue to raise with the chairperson who agreed to meet him.

In the meeting, Komichi alleged that an unnamed person informed him that they had picked up an envelope from a dustbin at the HICC where the special vote was being processed. Komichi further alleged that he had opened it out of curiosity and discovered that there were ballot papers.

Based on the envelope, Komichi alleged that ZEC was destroying the ballots, which were cast by the police in favour of MDC-T. The ballot in question belonged to Constable Mugove Chiginya, who had apparently voted for MDC-T during the special vote.

The envelope was passed around ZEC officials who established it to be a plastic tamper-proof envelope used to issue ballots to authorised special voters. ZEC allegedly noted that all the ballot papers did not have the presiding officer mark and that two were marked SV while the presidential ballot paper was not marked SV.

The commission reported the matter to the police and investigations showed that Chiginya had failed to vote in the special voting exercise as his name had not been called out by the presiding officer.