admin
Sibanda (56) was issued with a traffic offence ticket on 4 November last year after he was found doing 142km in a 120km per hour zone.
Sibanda never bothered to make a follow-up until the police got in touch with him last week and he finally appeared before Bulawayo magistrate Mrs Sibonginkosi Mkandla last Wednesday.
On being asked why he had defaulted court, Sibanda told the Bulawayo magistrate that his car broke down and he took it to a garage.
He added that he had too many things on his mind and the court, after finding no reasonable explanation, sentenced him to five days.
He was fined US$20 (or 10 days in prison) for contravening a section of the Road Act.
Soon after the court had passed sentence, prison officers who were in attendance in court took the record to the fines office where Sibanda, in the company of his wife, paid the deposit fine and left Tredgold Building which houses the Bulawayo magistrates’ courts.
Court officials only became aware of this development on Thursday afternoon.
Yesterday, Sibanda came in the company of his lawyer, Mr Robert Ndlovu, of R Ndlovu and Company Legal Practitioners, made an application for bail pending appeal against the jail term.
After Mr Ndlovu had made his application, Mr Cedric Ndaba Dube, for the State, indicated that he needed time to respond to the application and the matter was remanded to today.
Mr Ndlovu, on realising that it meant his client would spend the night in prison, withdrew his application for bail pending appeal and said he would approach the High Court.
Bulawayo High Court judge Justice Nicholas Ndou yesterday afternoon granted Sibanda US$50 bail pending appeal.
In his application to the High Court, Mr Ndlovu noted that the presiding magistrate made a finding that Sibanda was in wilful default by failing to attend court on the date notified by the police for a traffic offence.
It is his contention that the five days imposed by the court are too short a period and that if his client serves them, the appeal would be for academic purposes as opposed to being for justice.
“Applicant has no reason or incentive to abscond as he is a managing director of Sol Aviation (Pvt) Ltd which runs an airline business by the name of Fly 540-Zimbabwe.
“It will be a grave injustice if applicant were to serve the five days and later on win his appeal,” submitted Mr Ndlovu.
By the time Justice Ndou granted the bail in the afternoon, Sibanda had already been taken to prison and his lawyer was making frantic efforts to have him released and by end of business yesterday, Mr Ndlovu had delivered the warrant of liberation for his client at Bulawayo Prison.
Online Reporter