State Is Conflicted, Has Case To Answer In Rushwaya Case: Defence

The sudden U-turn made by the State in opposing the granting of bail to Zimbabwe Miners Federation (ZMF) president Henrietta Rushwaya is suspicious and raises a lot of questions, her defence team has said.

The State had consented to the granting of bail to Rushwaya on Tuesday when she appeared before Harare magistrate Ngoni Nduna.

The magistrate then said he needed to hear the basis of that consent. The matter was rolled over to today when the State led by Garudzo Ziyaduma reneged on its earlier decision and withdrew it’s consent.

Ziyaduma said that there were new circumstances on the case. He alleged that when Rushwaya approached the exit point at the airport, the monitoring CCTVs were switched off and all her check in formalities took just four minutes.

“The syndicate is actually wider and upon taking cognisance of this, investigations have been scaled up and some of her accomplices will be brought to this court tomorrow.”

“There is evidence that Rushwaya attempted to bribe two officers who had arrested her and this has a determination on whether she should be granted bail or not,” he said.

Following these submissions, Tapson
Dzvetero, Rushwaya’s lawyer, told the court that they were worried by the procedure and manner in which the withdrawal of the State’s consent to bail was done.

“It clearly shows that there was some interference in the due process. Why a sudden summersault?”

“These concessions cannot be withdrawn willy-nilly in criminal cases, they should be informed and properly done giving the accused an opportunity to make submissions. Such withdrawal of concessions will in most cases result in prejudice to the other side,” he said.

Dzvetero said an officer of the court making such a withdrawal should file an affidavit accepting blame for the erroneous concession but this was not done.

“Grounds upon which the consent was erroneously made must be submitted to the court. In this case Mr Masuku from the prosecutor general’s office and Mr Michael Reza signed the concession but no affidavit supports their withdrawal.”

“The State is making serious allegations that Rushwaya tried to bribe an official and there ought to be a reason why the concession was made in the first place. This bags a lot of questions, was the concession unlawfully made? Are they saying it was lawfully made or do they answer the court’s question why it was made?” he queried.

Ziyaduma submitted that the State does not have dirty hands on the approach it took to oppose bail.

“There is no prejudice to the accused and the rationality in arriving at that, the accused will be given an opportunity to prove that she is a perfect candidate for bail.”

He said before the court sat, he had communicated to the defence that they were going to place these new circumstances on record.

Magistrate Nduna ordered that he will hand down his ruling over the matter on Friday morning after evaluating all the literature and legal points raised during arguments by both parties.

Rushwaya will have to endure two nights in custody pending the ruling. Nhau/lndaba