adminOswell Moyo Chronicle Reporter
A TOWNSEND High School teacher who sustained back injuries during the pirate taxi fracas which resulted in the death of Sergeant Godsave Chingwe last week is preparing to sue police and the taxi driver.
Thenjiwe Sibanda, 28, yesterday told Chronicle that she spent three days at Mater Dei Hospital after she was thrown out of the speeding vehicle on Wednesday.
She was a passenger on the unlicensed taxi that was loading passengers from an illegal pick-up point along 12th Avenue.
“We’re yet to meet with our lawyer and seek legal advice concerning the route we’re supposed to take. I suffered back pains and bruises. We’re waiting for results and scan from the doctor to determine the gravity of injuries,” said Sibanda.
She told of a moment when “her life flashed in front of her eyes” as Sgt Chingwe pulled her out of the car with him as he tried to hang on while the driver zig-zagged on the road in a bid to throw the policeman off the door.
“I was seated in the front passenger seat when the police officer opened the door and leaned towards the steering. The driver saw him and sped off with the officer hanging on the door,” said Sibanda.
She said Sgt Chingwe kept grabbing her legs in his futile bid for safety.
“He ended up removing my shoes from my feet as I also tried to scramble out of his reach. At the final moment when he was flung from the door onto the road, he desperately reached out and grabbed my leg. I was pulled out of the vehicle and dumped onto the road,” said Sibanda, adding: “Everything happened so fast, I’m still confused.”
Her husband, Courage Sibanda said Sgt Chingwe was negligent and put his wife’s life in danger.
“Chingwe was very brutal and violent. He could have written down the vehicle’s registration number rather than put other people’s lives at risk. He acted very negligently and it seems he knew the driver of the pirate taxi,” said Sibanda.
He added that police officers from the homicide section visited him at his Matsheumhlope home and told him that chances of his wife being compensated by the police were very slim.
“They told me I’ll not get any compensation for my wife because Farai Zimunya, the driver, was unlicensed,” he said.
According to a witness, Zimunya was driving a Toyota Corolla when Sgt Chingwe, in police uniform, attempted to board the car and arrest him. He sped off with the police officer, who had one foot in the car, clinging to the door for over 100 metres before falling on tarmac road. He later died at Mater Dei Hospital.
Zimunya appeared before Bulawayo magistrate Sibongile Msipa facing a murder charge.
He was remanded in custody to October 27 and advised to apply to the High Court for bail.
Online Reporter