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Tendai Rupapa Senior Court Reporter
A Harare magistrate yesterday ruled that two of the three suspects believed to be part of a syndicate allegedly duping home-seekers by advertising non-existent residential stands in newspapers and using fake documents, were not proper candidates for bail and should remain in custody pending trial.
It also emerged in court that one of the suspects lied to the police and the court that his name was Tinashe Muyengwa yet his real name is Jethro Mubaiwa.
Prosecutor Mr Sebastian Mutizirwa had to seek assistance from the Registrar- General’s Office who managed to identify “Muyengwa” as Mubaiwa.
Mubaiwa (24), who is jointly charged with Peter Shuro (38) and Takunda Marinda (20), was nabbed after the trio wasabout to sell Daniel Nyarirangwe’s residential stand to Elisha Jaranganwa for $45 000.
They initially appeared in court on Friday last week and Marinda was granted $600 bail, while Mubaiwa and Shuro were remanded in custody after an alert Mr Mutizirwa recognised them from prior cases they were involved in he had prosecuted few years back.
Mr Mutizirwa told magistrate Mr Lazini Ncube he was sure that Mubaiwa was using a fake name adding that it was not his first time to be arrested but “Muyengwa” maintained that it was his real name and accused Mr Mutizirwa of lying.
The matter was remanded to yesterday to allow the State to verify their facts and when “Muyengwa” appeared before Ms Barbra Chimboza yesterday, he maintained that his name was Tinashe Muyengwa and that it was his first time to be arraigned before the courts.
Mr Mutizirwa produced a warrant of arrest document and other pending cases files for Shuro and Mubaiwa but “Muyengwa” insisted that Mr Mutizirwa was mistaken.
The matter was adjourned to give the State more time to investigate and it had to seek help from the RG’s Office who searched for “Tinashe Muyengwa” and the identity number he provided to the police and court.
They discovered that the ID number he claimed to be his belonged to a 70-year-old man. It was also discovered that the face on “Tinashe Muyengwa’s” documents at the RG’s Office was not of the accused person.
They further searched for Jethro Mubaiwa and the accused person’s face appeared on the documents, which was then printed and brought before the court.
When the court resumed, Mr Mutizirwa tendered the document from the RG’s Office and upon noticing that he had been cornered, “Muyengwa” confessed that his actual name was Jethro Mubaiwa and that he was not a first time offender.
Ms Chimboza remanded them in custody pending trial on the basis that they were facing a serious offence and were likely to abscond if granted bail. Mr Nyarirangwe is based in the United Kingdom and it is not clear how the suspects got hold of his title deeds and identity details, which they used to forge an identity document.
It is also still a mystery as to how they got to know that stand number 918 Bannockburn Road, Mt Pleasant Heights, Harare, belonged to Mr Nyarirangwe.
Prosecutor Mr Mutizirwa alleged that on June 10, the trio placed an advertisement in a local newspaper stating that they were selling a residential stand in Mt Pleasant Heights, Harare, for $45 000.
They were arrested following a trap after Mr Jaranganwa’s lawyer had done due diligence.
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