admin
riding in a lions’ den especially given the exclusively gospel music that dominated in the car.
The couple had just arrived at Westgate from the Tobacco Sales Floor where they had sold their golden leaf when they boarded the vehicle driven by an innocent looking young man.
“With all the music praising Jehovah blaring in the car, we never imagined we were in the hands of the notorious highway robbers who recently were slapped with sentences ranging from 34 to 70 years by a Chinhoyi magistrate,” said Mary as she relived her ordeal last week.
“Apart from dispossessing us of all that we toiled for over the past year, they caused permanent injuries to my husband. I wonder if he will be able to work for the family anymore. Right now he sometimes bleeds profusely through the nose and ears every time he tries to do strenuous work.
They bludgeoned him in the head with a claw hammer until he became unconscious while I helplessly watched. They dehumanised us in the worst manner — stripping us completely naked before dumping us in the heart of a jungle,” she added.
Mary said it was about 6pm when the robbers’ car left Westgate with six passengers on board among them an old man who later dropped off near Nyabira.
“Trouble only started few moments after the fifth passenger — a young man in his twenties — had disembarked at a bus stop just after Mapinga. He was, in fact, the fourth robber in disguise.
“We never realised then that we were left in the midst of three mean robbers.
“When the robber in the front seat asked for money, my husband thought he meant the transport fare and told him he would pay upon reaching our destination.
“The cheeky robber laughed sarcastically before telling him that he wanted all the money that we had as a couple before reminding him that he was not joking.
“Upon standing his ground and declining to hand over the money, stashed in his trouser pocket, the robber in the front seat teamed with the one seated next to him before they started undressing him,” said Mary.
Noticing that Oliver was posing some stiff resistance Mary said the robber in the front seat then drew out a claw hammer and struck him three times just below his right ear while the other robber pinned his hands on to the car seat.
“I watched him bleeding from the nose and ears after which he helplessly surrendered all the US$3 650 that we had realised from our tobacco crop. He became unconscious and I thought he was dead,” narrated the mother of two.
During the course of the pandemonium, Mary says the car was travelling at a terrific speed with the gospel music still blaring at an even much higher volume such that crying for help was useless.
Because she thought her husband was dead, Mary said she tried to commit suicide by opening the door and jumping out of the moving car. But Alas! Her attempt almost cost her heavily from the robber in the front seat who upon noticing her intention drew out a machete to hack her throat.
“After the robber behind the wheel grabbed the machete and ordered that I not be killed, the two robbers severely beat me up. By then they had also completely stripped my husband naked and had also taken away all our cellphones plus my handbag.
“A few kilometres just before Banket the car turned right before speeding along a rugged road cutting through some disused fields. After a distance of about two kilometres the car made a sudden U-turn and screeched to a halt.
“They seemed very familiar with the area judging from the way the car negotiated potholes and sharp curves that characterised the dusty road.
“The robbers ordered me out of the car before one of them took me to a spot about 10 metres away. He ordered me to strip naked from top to bottom. He blindfolded me with some polythene material before tying my hands at the back using my panties that he had shredded into a strip.
“After they sped off, I had no difficulty breaking free or removing the blindfold but my biggest hurdle remained finding my husband. I thought they had left him in the car so that they would dump him in a mine shaft somewhere.
“I started crying but realised that it would not help in any way. I searched for my husband within a radius of 20 metres from where I had been blindfolded.
“It took me about an hour to come across a white object. Investigating closely I discovered the white item was a small cloth blindfolding my husband whose hands were also tied at the back using a trousers belt.
“He was completely naked and unconscious. I also realised they had sped off with our travelling bag containing all the clothes we had bought for the family in Harare,” she said.
Mary said she was inexplicably joyous when she found her husband, as her greatest wish was to find him dead or alive.
“From there I went through a hard slog, dragging my unconscious husband in the direction from which rumbling sounds of vehicles were coming. I knew that could be the highway.
“Trudging slowly and struggling with my still-unconscious husband I made it to the highway where my greatest challenge was to convince motorists that I was not mad albeit naked.
“After an hour of waving at heavy and light vehicles alike without any success, a kombi travelling to Chinhoyi eventually came to my rescue. I narrated my nightmare to the crew.
“Since I was naked one of the female passengers in the kombi offered me a wrapping cloth before some men in the same kombi also assisted in hauling my naked husband aboard.
The kombi took us to Banket Police Station where two men who were on board the kombi later gave my husband a T-shirt and a pair of shorts,” she said with her eyes almost in tears.
Mary added that police assisted in ferrying Matirira to Banket hospital where he was later transferred to Chinhoyi Provincial Hospital the following day while the robbers were arrested just a couple of days after the incident.
While Oliver was admitted at Chinhoyi Provincial Hospital, Mary was called to CID (Chinhoyi) where she positively identified the robbers without any difficulty.
The notorious robbers — Crynos Chisuwi (25), Norest Mashiri (20), Stanley Maendesa (26) and Njabulo Gumbo (26) — recently pleaded guilty to several counts of robbery when the quartet appeared before Chinhoyi regional magistrate Mr Never Katiyo.
Chisuwi who had nine counts of robbery and was the owner of the two vehicles used in the robberies was sentenced to 70 years in jail with 14 suspended on condition that he does not commit a related offence in the next five years.
A further 24 years of the sentence would run concurrently meaning he would serve an effective 34 years in prison. Maendesa and Gumbo will serve the same number of years.
Mashiri will serve 18 years as he was said to be young according to the law.
The vehicles they were using — a Toyota Corolla and a Toyota Altezza — were also forfeited to the State in accordance with Section 62 of the Criminal Procedure and Evidence Act.
Meanwhile, the Matiriras who live in the Nyama Resettlement Area outside Karoi, claim they no longer have cordial relations with fellow villagers after failing to settle a range of debts.
“The robbers reduced us to paupers. We are now starting all over again. We had arranged to buy a residential stand in Karoi this year and all is now water under the bridge. The worst hell we are going through is our failure to settle what we owe our fellow villagers. There are several outstanding payments due to those who cured and graded our tobacco among others.
“We have gone to the extent of selling our free range chickens, goats and even part of the little grain we have to clear up the debts,” says Oliver Matirira, who now says his right eye and ear can no longer see or hear properly.
Feedback: [email protected]
Online Reporter