Police quiz Mwonzora

Daniel Kachere Herald Reporter—
MDC-T national spokesperson Douglas Mwonzora was yesterday questioned by police for allegedly assaulting an MDC-T supporter near the party’s Harvest House headquarters in Harare on Saturday.  Chief Police spokesperson Senior Assistant Commissioner Charity Charamba confirmed the incident.

“Mr Mwonzora was invited to Harare Central police Law and Order section to answer allegations that he and three other people assaulted Leonard Dendera at Harvest House at around 9pm on Saturday,” she said.

Snr Asst Comm Charamba said a warned and cautioned statement was recorded from Mwonzora and investigations were in progress.
It is alleged that Mwonzora and his colleagues beat up and kicked Dendera, who claims to be an MDC-T supporter several times, inflicting an injury on the elbow of his left hand as he was walking along Nelson Mandela Avenue.

Dendera is alleged to have been drunk at the time when he heard people from a car pointing at him shouting that he was the one.
When they got to where he was, they bundled him into the car before driving to Harvest house. While in the car, they beat and kicked him several times asking him rhetorical questions.

When they reached Harvest House, he managed to jump out of the car and escaped to report to the police.
Mwonzora denied the allegations during an interview with The Herald on Sunday saying Dendera wanted to set Harvest House ablaze.
“I never assaulted anyone and have never assaulted anyone,” he said.

“I use my brain and yesterday (Sunday) I can confirm that the security guards apprehended Leonard Dendera while he was trying to break into Harvest house.

“He was confronted by the security where he was dispossessed of his hacksaw that he wanted to use to cut the burglar bars. He also had two litres of petrol and a lighter and I can say he was trying to set Harvest House on fire. It just happened that I was dropping off some people at Harvest House where I found him already apprehended by our security,” he said.

“You can write what you think happened but this is just part of mudslinging by other people and this never happened.”
MDC-T has been rocked by intra-party violence and factionalism with the ongoing purge of officials opposed to party leader Mr Morgan Tsvangirai.