Online Reporter
Fidelis Munyoro
Chief Court Reporter
The two men who were sentenced to death for the cold blooded murder of seven-year-old Tapiwa Makore have lodged an appeal before the Supreme Court, challenging both their conviction and the imposition of the death penalty.
The gruesome killing was done for ritual purposes allegedly tied to promises of wealth.
Tafadzwa Shamba was convicted of murder in July 2023, while the boy’s uncle, Tapiwa Makore Senior, was found guilty as an accomplice.
Although there was no direct evidence proving Makore Senior committed the offence, he was deeply implicated for providing his home as the venue for the murder.
High Court judge Justice Munamato Mutevedzi sentenced both men to death, saying that the murder was committed under circumstances of extreme aggravation.
Because the court passed the death penalty, the pair is entitled to an automatic appeal at the Supreme Court.
The appeal comes at a time when Zimbabwe has recently abolished the death penalty from its laws.
The prosecution is currently reviewing all death row cases with plans to remit them to the High Court for resentencing.
Through his lawyer Mr Kudzai Kadzere of Kadzere and Mandevere Legal Practitioners, Makore Senior has filed his appeal, urging the Supreme Court to reassess the lower court’s reliance on circumstantial evidence in convicting him.
Mr Kadzere argues that the evidence presented during the trial failed to exclude all reasonable inferences, including the possibility that Shamba may have planted incriminating items at Makore Senior’s homestead.
The appeal also raises the question of whether the High Court erred by disregarding the fact that Makore Senior was not present at his homestead when the boy was kidnapped and detained there, which, the defence contends, undermines the claim that he facilitated the crime.
Justice Mutevedzi, in his sentence, castigated the defendants’ depravity.
He noted that the murder was carried out with predatory zeal and complete moral bankruptcy.
The lower court found that the murder was a deliberate and well planned act of mortal violence, carried out to fulfill a ritualistic objective.
It ruled that Shamba’s confession revealed that he and Makore Senior conspired for days, if not weeks, to execute the crime and profit from selling the boy’s body parts to a witch doctor for US$1 500.
Justice Mutevedzi underscored the aggravating circumstances, including the protracted detention of the boy, the use of intoxicants to subdue him, and the mutilation of his body.
His head, hands and legs were severed while some body parts were later recovered in various locations. However, the head remains missing — a fact the court attributed to the ritualistic nature of the crime.
The discovery of the boy’s disfigured body ignited widespread outrage across the nation, with demands for justice.
Shamba’s confession, corroborated by a magistrate and upheld by the High Court, was central to the case.
His statements led investigators to the crime scenes, where he pointed out where the boy was killed and where some of his body parts were hidden.
Among the recovered evidence were the boy’s lower limbs, found discarded in a latrine, and a container of illicit brew used to drug him.
The court found Shamba guilty of murder based on his confession and the corroborative evidence, while Makore Senior was convicted as an accomplice.
Justice Mutevedzi described the murder as a crime of unparalleled wickedness, stating that the two men’s actions displayed “a level of depravity that could not be exceeded by anything else.”
The court concluded that the murder, committed with both premeditation and malevolent intent, represented an affront to humanity and could not go unpunished.
