Lawyers blame prison officers for lack of privacy

their incarcerated clients for trial.
Defence lawyer Mr Charles Kwaramba said the prison officers, instead of keeping an eye on the suspects during the interviews, were actually listening.
Mr Kwaramba was addressing the court in an application for a three-week postponement of the murder trial at the High Court yesterday.
He said conditions in prison were not conducive to interview his clients in preparation for the defence.
“Prison officers will be standing there within earshot instead of just standing within eyesight as provided for in the laws,” said Mr Kwaramba.
“On Thursday we asked for more space to interview the accused persons, but it did not help. They kept on listening to what we were discussing.
“We have since written to the prison authorities on the same issue but their response did not improve the situation.”
Mr Kwaramba said the interview of the 29 suspects under the tight prison conditions and further interviewing of the defence witnesses will require at least three weeks.
Law officer Mr Edmore Nyazamba opposed the application.
He argued that three weeks was too long and will result in the case spilling into the second term of the High Court.
Mr Nyazamba dismissed the defence claims that the prison conditions were not conducive for interviewing suspects.
“I am hearing this complaint for the first time in this jurisdiction. The environment is very conducive and I am not sure what has changed the environment,” said Mr Nyazamba.
“The Commissioner of Prisons is always ready to solve such problems. We can always direct the Commissioner of Prisons to create an environment conducive for the interviews and taking of instructions.”
The State, said Mr Nyazamba, could only consent to the postponement of the case for one week to allow the lawyers to prepare defence outlines.
He said long postponements will result in the expiration of the six months indictment period without any trial.
Mr Nyazamba said the defence was not being serious in dealing with the matter.
The court heard that the defence team since June last year had been seriously and vociferously fighting for bail while taking instructions from remand prison.
But it was now unreasonable that they were now failing to take instructions for trial from the same prison.
Mr Nyazamba said in several previous court cases like the Simon Mann case, some 70 accused persons were interviewed by their lawyers from remand prison and that there was nothing special about the current 29 murder suspects.
Mr Kwaramba argued that there was a difference between taking instructions for bail proceedings and taking instructions for a trial. He said in bail applications, hearsay evidence was admissible while it was inadmissible in a trial.
The lawyer further differentiated the two legal processes before pushing for the postponement of the case to April 2.
Justice Chinembiri Bhunu agreed to first hear a bail application in respect of the 29 before making a ruling on the postponement issue.
Contradicting reasons for the removal of the 29’s bail application from the court roll last week were raised forcing the court to first go through the bail record before deciding to entertain it before trial or not.
Mr Nyazamba said the matter was removed from the roll after the judge found it proper for the trial court to deal with it after going through the defence outline and other evidence.
Mr Kwaramba said the case was simply removed from the roll for the trial court to deal with it since it was only two days before the trial date.
Justice Bhunu deferred the case to Thursday to allow the defence to go through the court record and possibly request for reasons for the removal of the bail case from the court roll.
The 29 are facing murder charges stemming from the death of police Inspector Petros Mutedza in May last year in Glen View.
Alternatively, the suspects will face public violence charges.