Mnangagwa challenger's trial continues

The trial of political activist Sybeth Musengezi, in which he is being accused of joining Zanu-PF party structures fraudulently yesterday continued with his counsel making attempts to make the court disregard the State witness evidence which they called ‘hearsay'.

The State led its first witness Zanu-PF chairman for Harare province Godwills Masimirembwa, who testified how they found out that Musengezi was not a member of the party.

He said following investigations on the cell register, the party discovered that Musengezi had used two different addresses neither of which he resided at nor conducted any visits.

Musengezi's legal counsel Mr Nqobani Sithole and Mr Doug Coltart made an application to have his evidence in-chief expunged from the record arguing that it was based on hearsay not first-hand information.

However, prosecutor Mr Tafara Chirambira challenged them saying it was upon the court to disregard which part of Masimirembwa's evidence can be deemed inadmissible hence trial should continue.

Masimirembwa submitted evidence of Zanu-PF 2017 and 2019 registers for Hatcliffe district to prove that Musengezi was not in the party cell registers.

Musengezi's counsel also objected to the tendering of the documents as an exhibit contending that he was not the author of these documents neither was he the custodian of said documents.

Mr Chirambira said Masimirembwa was testifying in his capacity as the representative of the party hence he qualified to tender such documents.

Magistrate Mrs Yeukai Dzuda had to adjourn briefly to assess the submissions and make a ruling on whether the cell registers could be tendered as exhibits before the court.

She ruled that the said documents were of public nature and have been made part of the record hence trial should continue.

Masimbirembwa also told the court that Musengezi's name still did not appear in cell registers for the year 2020.

"The accused name does not appear in Zanu-PF 2020 cell registers and neither do we have a record of him applying to become a member of Zanu-PF in 2020.

"In 2023, we again as Zanu-PF carried out cell registration exercise throughout the country including, Hatcliffe. Again, the accused's name does not appear anywhere in Harare province's current cell registers, indicating that he is not a member of the party," he said.

Masimirembwa told the court during cross examination that investigations to look into Musengezi's records were as a result of his application at the High Court challenging the legitimacy of President Mnangagwa.

"He challenged the President on how he ascended into power. l read the article in the newspapers and was engaged by the Zanu-PF team to check who this person was.

"This is because all party members are guided by the Zanu-PF constitution and if anyone has grievances within the party, there is an internal grievances procedure to be followed and that was never done," he said.

Musengezi's lawyers dismissed Masimirembwa's evidence stating that there was no document before the court containing a resolution that he was assigned to represent the party in this matter.

Masimirembwa reinforced that, automatically by his position as chairman, he was entitled to represent the party and if need be, and can tender a resolution from the party

The cross examination is expected to continue on June 13.