Online Reporter
YESTERDAY, we carried the story of four police officers who allegedly stole US$57 000 and two kgs of gold, while the driver of a car which had been involved in an accident was unconscious.
The accident happened in the early hours of Saturday morning near Selous, along the Harare-Bulawayo highway.
Nobizita Gatawa, who had been driving a Toyota Max, was involved in a road traffic accident near the Selous roundabout.
He had US$80 000 in cash in his car and 2.16kgs of pure gold and was unconscious when the four police officers attended the accident scene.
All the four police officers have been arrested. They are Rudo Tafa, Daniel Mujabuki, Musekiwa Karimanzira from ZRP Saruwe and Thomson Brian Chinyani from ZRP Norton Traffic.
They appeared in court on Tuesday before Norton magistrate Christine Nyandoro.
They were released on US$150 bail each.
The State, represented by Thomas Chanakira, alleged that on Saturday, at around 4am, Tafa, Mujabuki and Karimanzira were on moming raid deployment using a ZRP Mahindra vehicle.
The three parked their car at the Selous roundabout, along the Harare-Bulawayo highway.
They were informed by a motorist, who was coming from Chegutu, that an accident had occurred, just before the roundabout.
The three went back to their police station and picked up Chinyani, who is deployed at ZRP Norton Traffic base at ZRP Saruwe, and went to the traffic accident scene.
The State claims the quartet stole US$57 000 and 2kgs of gold.
They handed over US$22 500 to Gatawa’s father, when he came to see him. That was when the offence was discovered. This story captured the imagination of our readers and has triggered a lot of debate on our social media platforms.
Many of our readers are unhappy that these police officers have found themselves facing these charges in court when they were supposed to be the ones who should have protected the gold and the money.
That is what our police officers are there for.
It is their job to protect us all the time and more so when we have challenges like having been involved in an accident and we can’t help ourselves.
The motorist who first saw the accident did the right thing to report to the first police officers that he met. It was in the early hours of the morning and he could have been concerned that if he stopped to help he could not guarantee his own safety.
Once the police officers took control of the case, they should have handled it in a very professional way.
They should have sealed the accident scene and took control of the gold and the money which they found in the car.
For them to steal part of the money is very unprofessional and should be condemned in the strongest way possible.
We are happy that we have laws which protect such victims and deal with such rogue police officers.
That is quite reassuring and we know other police officers will not try to steal money which they find at accident scenes.
