adminMashudu Netsianda Senior Court Reporter
THE High Court yesterday slashed the sentence of a Bulawayo lawyer, Tungamirai Nyengera, who was in 2014 jailed for four years when he connived with a principal officer at the Zimbabwe Prisons and Correctional Services (ZPCS) to fraudulently release a serving convict at Khami Prison.
Nyengera, 37, and Absolom Hlupo, 47, a principal prison officer, fraudulently made a warrant of liberation to free a serving prisoner who was sentenced for carjacking.
Nyengera was convicted of fraud and sentenced to an effective three years by Gwanda-based magistrate Reuben Mukavhi who was sitting at the Bulawayo Magistrates’ Court.
One year was suspended for five years on condition that he would not within that period commit a similar crime. Hlupo was sentenced to an effective two years.
The ruling by Bulawayo High Court judge, Justice Nokuthula Moyo, follows an appeal against both conviction and sentence by Nyengera through his lawyers, Moyo and Nyoni Legal Practitioners, arguing that he was wrongly convicted.
In the court papers, Nyengera is the appellant while the National Prosecuting Authority was cited as the respondent.
Justice Moyo upheld the conviction but ruled that the sentence was too harsh.
She said Nyengera was a young lawyer who lacked maturity at the time of committing the crime.
“We found no misdirection in the manner with which the trial court dealt with the evidence before it. We however, noted that the appellant is also a young lawyer who was at the inception of his career. We are of the view that he should have been given a sentence that considers his maturity as a lawyer,” said the judge.
Justice Moyo set aside the sentence and substituted it with a three-year jail term of which one year was conditionally suspended for five years.
Nyengera will serve an effective two years in jail.
The court heard that on December 23, 2014, Hlupo went to Nyengera’s office in the city and they connived to facilitate the release of a convicted serving prisoner Lungisani Sibanda through illegal means by producing a fraudulent warrant of liberation.
Nyengera handed over a completed warrant of liberation, serial number 2578J, to Hlupo who took the fraudulent document to Khami Maximum Prison. He tendered the warrant of liberation to his superior, Superintendent Joe Matyavira, for processing.
However, Matyavira discovered that it was a fraudulent document, leading to the two’s arrest.
derick.khumalo