Judgment on Africom bosses reserved

The three reportedly illegally set up satellite communication equipment and leaked official secrets to foreign countries.
Africom acting chief executive Simba Mangwende and non-executive director Farai Rwodzi, together with Oliver Chiku of Global Satellite Systems are being charged with contravening Section 33 (i) of the Postal and Telecommunications.
The Act makes it an offence for one to illegally possess, control or work for a radio station.
Through their lawyers Mr Nikita Madya, Advocate Lewis Uriri and Mr Innocent Musimbe, the trio applied for an exception to the charges against them.
The defence argued that the facts before the court, even if they are proved, do not constitute a criminal offence.
But prosecutor Mr Michael Reza dismissed the defence application and urged the court to put the trio on trial.
Said Mr Reza: “This is a case which has to be decided on empirical evidence. It is either the crime was committed or not. The offending contraction is called a VSAT, the issue is whether it was installed or not. If it was installed were the proper procedures followed?”
“The next inquiry would be if it worked or not. The crime is like the pregnancy of a woman, one is either pregnant or not, there is nothing called a little pregnancy. In this case the VSAT was installed.”
Mr Reza further submitted that he will lead evidence linking each of the suspects to the commission of the offence.
“It was just these two directors from Africom who were invited for dinner by the ambassador of Canada. ”
“A whole ambassador of Canada to invite these two for dinner just to celebrate the installation of a VSAT?” said Mr Reza.
In response, Mr Madya argued that the State had not responded to their submissions saying if the submissions made by the prosecution were made at a chief’s hearing they would have been received with applause.
“Accused are not being charged for having dinner with the Canadian ambassador, they did have dinner with the ambassador but there is no law prohibiting them to,” he said.
He said the submissions they made stand unchallenged. Adv Uriri said the basis of their exception application had not been addressed by the State but rather the prosecution sought to dwell on issues of corporate governance.
Mr Jarabini will rule on the matter on Monday next week.
According to the State papers, between July and October 27 this year, the three hatched a plan to send messages to the United States, Canada and Afghanistan about confidential data from Government ministries.
It is alleged Chiku, who is connected to a Canadian firm called Juch Tech, invited the company’s representatives to Zimbabwe. Juch Tech is reportedly hostile to the Zimbabwean Government. While in Zimbabwe, Chiku allegedly organised a meeting with Rwodzi and discussed the installation of satellite dishes and other equipment capable of transmitting Internet voice over the Internet protocol. The two allegedly agreed and Rwodzi referred Chiku and Juch Tech representatives to Mangwende. Mangwende, the State alleges, then instructed Africom engineers to install the equipment brought in by Chiku and the Canadians. The equipment was tested and it was fully operational. Thereafter, the Canadians left the country and police investigations established that the three had bought the equipment in their personal capacities.