Fugitive Vingirai expected in court

International Airport after spending seven years on the police wanted list – is likely to appear in court today.
Vingirai left the country in 2004 after talk of problems at Intermarket Holdings Limited only to return this week.

He is facing several counts of theft and three of externalisation of huge sums of foreign currency.
Police spokesperson Detective Inspector Augustine Zimbili said Vingirai was arrested as he disembarked from a South African Airways flight on a warrant of arrest.

“Yes, Vingirai was arrested on Monday at the airport. He is facing several counts of theft and three counts of illegal exportation of foreign currency.
“He is currently in police custody and is likely to appear in court tomorrow (Wednesday),” said Detective Insp Zimbili.

Vingirai was a major shareholder and group chief executive of Intermarket Holdings Limited at the alleged time of commission of the offence.
He was responsible for investing funds into the financial institution’s subsidiaries that had their own separate management.

It is alleged that Vingirai connived with one of the signatories and withdrew substantial amounts of Zimbabwean dollars from the subsidiaries’ accounts and bought foreign currency, which was later converted to personal use.

Vingirai’s lawyer, Mr Godfrey Mamvura of Scanlen and Holderness, said his client surrendered himself to the police after communication with the police.
“I wrote to the police on September 10 this year inquiring about my client’s status and they responded six days letter informing me that there was a warrant of arrest.

“I then informed them that my client will be coming to Zimbabwe and the police joined me at the airport only to discover they had come to arrest him. Vingirai actually came on his own,” he said.
Mr Mamvura complained about the police’s delay in taking his client to court saying the move suggested that there was more to the criminal charges they were preferring against him.

“I do not understand why the police are taking this long to bring my client before the courts.
“I understand the police have since completed the paperwork, but I do not see the reason why they failed to take him to court today,” he said.

Vingirai left the country in early 2004 in the wake of a sector-wide banking crisis that claimed his Intermarket Banking Corporation, Intermarket Discount House and Intermarket Building Society.
He was the owner of Transnational Corporation, an investment vehicle through which he owned IHL, whose building society was among the top three mortgage lenders in the country.