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Chief Court Reporter
A Chegutu man accused of murdering a fellow reveller in a drunken brawl has been acquitted, with the court condemning the police for shoddy work.
A High Court judge slammed police for clumsy investigations.
Admire Chidhakwa was cleared of murdering George Komboni at P and J Mining Syndicate Mine, Chegutu, nine years ago after Justice Tawanda Herbert Chitapi ruled that the prosecution failed to make a case against the suspect. Komboni was found dead near Nyambuya Plot, Sable Bush Park, with a deep wound on the scalp in the temporal region.
The trial started in June this year and the evidence adduced in court failed to add up to secure conviction.
“In recent times this court has not come across such shoddy investigations as obtained in this case,” said Justice Chitapi.
The investigating officer, Detective Seargent Ngoni Shayanewako, blamed the economic meltdown of 2007 for poor investigations in his testimony.
He said the period was punctuated by scarcity of resources on the part of the police to carry out proper investigations. Justice Chitapi accepted his assertion that 2007 was one of the worst years in economic terms when the country faced hyperinflation and shortage of resources, but took a swipe at the police for clumsy work.
“If the scarcity of resources was the major cause for shoddy investigations, then the individual investigative shortcomings on the part of the investigating team served to put paid to any semblance of professionalism… if one could say any meaningful or purposeful investigation was made at all,” said Justice Chitapi.
In his testimony, Detective Sgt Shayanewako was not clear as to circumstances under which Chidhakwa made the confirmed warned and cautioned statement.
Details to follow…..
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