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Former Cabinet Minister Ignatius Chombo, who was arrested over alleged graft in stands allocation on Monday, will spend the night at Remand Prison after Harare magistrate Stanford Mambanje postponed his bail ruling to tomorrow.
Chombo appeared before Mambanje on Wednesday facing one count of fraud and five counts of criminal abuse of office, all allegedly committed between the year 2000 and 2015 while he was at the helm of the then housing ministry.
The State represented by Charles Muchemwa and Ephraim Zinyandu opposed bail stating that the charges he was facing would likely influence him to flee from trial.
“Effects of the allegations are such that they induce some flight risk in the accused person,” Muchemwa said.
Muchemwa argued that as a man of means, Chombo had high chances of evading justice as the charges he was facing were most likely to secure a conviction.
The investigating officer of the case, Detective Maxwell Gudo, told the court that freeing Chombo would likely give him a chance to interfere with investigations which are still underway.
However, his lead defence counsel Professor Lovemore Madhuku, who was being assisted by Tungamirai Muganhiri and Munyaradzi Bwanya, submitted that Chombo would be challenging his placement on remand on his next appearance.
Muganhiri also dismissed the State’s fears of abscondment as mere assumptions citing that Chombo handed himself over to the police and such behaviour would not match the State’s submissions. Nhau/Indaba
