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Senior Court Reporter
MDC-T deputy national chairman Morgan Komichi accused of contravening the country’s electoral laws had his fifth bail application thrown out by the High court last week.The higher court upheld the lower court’s decision that Komichi was not a proper candidate for bail.
His lawyer Mr Alec Muchadehama had appealed against the magistrate’s ruling. But Justice Felistas Chatukuta threw out the appeal on the basis that the trial magistrate did not misdirect himself in dismissing Komichi’s fourth bail application.
The trial magistrate, she said, was better placed to decide on bail. She added that Komichi is facing a serious offence and might abscond if granted bail.
The lower court had rejected Komichi’s fourth bid saying the prosecution has a strong case against the MDC-T official and that he was likely to abscond if granted the relief he sought.
Komichi, who is accused of fraud and contravening the Electoral Act after he was found in possession of an envelope containing ballot papers belonging to Constable Mugove Chiginya, unsuccessfully sought bail at both the magistrates’ courts and High Court.
He was arrested on July 28 on allegations of misrepresenting to the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission that he had “picked up” from a dust bin, a sealed tamper-proof envelope with a special vote ballot paper at the Harare International Conference Centre.
Komichi allegedly approached Zec deputy director of public relations Mr Tendai Pamire and told him that an unnamed person informed him that they had picked an envelope from a dustbin at the HICC where the special vote was being processed.
He further alleged that he had opened it out of curiosity and discovered that there were ballot papers cast by the police officer in favour of MDC-T.
The commission reported the matter to the police and investigations showed that Cst Chiginya had failed to vote in the special voting exercise as his name had not been called out by the presiding officer.
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