Fake asylum documents land woman in hot soup

charged with publishing or communicating false statements prejudicial to the State.
Mashakada (52) was not formally charged when she appeared before Harare magistrate Ms Anita Tshuma who remanded her out of custody to May 2 this year on US$100 bail.
Prosecutor Mr David Magwegwe alleges that on March 31 this year Mashakada hatched a plan to obtain a New Zealand visa, which she was once denied by the same country’s embassy.
Pursuant to her plan she allegedly authored two handwritten letters which contained false statements prejudicial to the State.
She allegedly gave the letters to Cuthbert Shoko so that he would facilitate that they be stamped with an MDC-T logo to support her application.
Mashakada, it is further alleged, approached a doctor Silous Majani and lied that she was a victim of political violence and had sustained injuries all over her body.
The doctor, it is alleged, gave her a letter to support her allegations that she was assaulted in politically motivated violence and sustained head and stomach injuries as well as a fractured leg.
Shoko, the State says, read the contents of the letters and the doctor’s report and realised that the information was prejudicial to the State.
He reported the matter to the police leading to Mashakada’s arrest.