CCC activists bid to block exhibits fails

Nyore Madzianike Senior Court Reporter

CCC members, Joana Mamombe and Cecelia Chimbiri, yesterday failed in yet another bid to block the State from tendering into court record, exhibits extracted from Econet outlining data usage and base stations which picked network on cellphones believed to belong to them.

Through their lawyer Mr Alec Muchadehama, the duo lodged an objection after prosecutor Mr Michael Reza applied to tender the documents through State witness Mr Godfrey Mangezi, in a matter they are accused of faking their abductions in May 2020.

Mr Mangezi is employed at Econet and he is the one who compiled the data which is being relied on as evidence by the State.

According to the State, the exhibits will prove that Mamombe and Chimbiri’s cellphones were in Harare at a time they claim to have been abducted.

In their objection, they claimed that Mr Mangezi had given the police a soft copy of the data usage and base stations not a hard copy, which the State wanted to tender.

They also said that there was no similarity between the two, despite the fact that the hard copy was printed from the soft copy that was handed to police by Mr Mangezi during investigations stage.

“We object to tendering of such because the witness said that he gave police a soft copy. The witness tendered a soft copy and we do not know what is in the soft copies.

“This is why we requested that we be favoured with soft copies and we compare with hard copies,” said Mr Muchadehama.

In responding to the objection, Mr Reza told the court that Mr Muchadehama had not raised any issues regarding the authenticity of the hard copies he wanted to tender into the court record.

“They did not doubt the authenticity of the documents. He will be given an opportunity to cross-examine the witness over the documents,” he said.

Chief Magistrate Mrs Faith Mushure ruled that Mr Mangezi should make a print-out of the soft copy he gave to the police and furnish Mamombe and Chimbiri for scrutiny before the State tenders them into the record.

In his testimony, Mr Mangezi indicated that the records extracted from Econet show that the two cellphone lines were browsing on various network platforms during the time they claimed to have been abducted.

The trial continues on June 14.