Online Reporter
Fidelis Munyoro
Chief Court Reporter
A MAN who fatally assaulted his 86-year-old father after accusing him of practising witchcraft has been sentenced to 20 years in prison by the High Court in Chinhoyi.
Justice Phildah Muzofa convicted Talent Chirongoma (28) of murder with constructive intent after finding that he brutally attacked his father with wooden logs at the family’s homestead on September 10, 2025.
In imposing the statutory minimum sentence for aggravated murder, the judge found that although the accused had not planned the killing, he must have realised that repeatedly assaulting the elderly man was likely to cause death.
“The attack on the deceased was callous and incessant,” Justice Muzofa said. The court found aggravating circumstances because the victim was over 70-years-old.
“It is highly aggravating that the accused killed his father, an octogenarian. Instead of protecting his aged father as is expected of children, he was the villain,” the judge said.
The court heard that Chirongoma returned home and became enraged after finding church members gathered with his father.
According to evidence led during the trial, he denounced his father as “the devil incarnate”, accusing him of practising witchcraft and blaming him for years of misfortune, including illnesses and unexplained afflictions suffered by family members.
The church members fled before Chirongoma armed himself with wooden logs and repeatedly struck his father. A man who attempted to intervene was also assaulted and knocked unconscious.
A post-mortem established that he died from epidural haemorrhage and haemorrhagic shock after sustaining multiple injuries to the head, torso and limbs.
Although Chirongoma denied committing the offence and claimed he was at work when the attack occurred, the court dismissed his alibi as false.
Justice Muzofa ruled that his defence was riddled with contradictions. “Lies have short legs,” she remarked while assessing his evidence. The court also admitted a warned and cautioned statement in which Chirongoma confessed to killing his father.
“I admit to the charge levelled against me that I murdered my father by assaulting him with wooden logs,” the statement read.
The judge found the confession consistent with medical evidence and witness testimony. During the trial, the accused’s mother, Makaita Chirongoma, testified that her son blamed his father for the family’s problems through alleged witchcraft.
Justice Muzofa described the witness as “obviously torn between two”, saying it was difficult to determine whether she was more devastated by the death of her husband or by her son’s actions.
The court also heard that the deceased’s widow believed her husband possessed supernatural powers that had tormented the family for years. However, Justice Muzofa said such beliefs could never justify murder.
“Even if he was a witch, an eye for an eye approach is not justified at law; it will certainly make the whole world blind,” she said.
“The right to life protected in our Constitution is not for the perfect human being, who does not exist anywhere. That right is for everyone by virtue of being a human being.”
In mitigation, the court accepted that the family’s genuine belief in witchcraft had influenced the accused’s conduct.
Justice Muzofa said that, but for that mitigating factor, a sentence closer to 25 years would have been appropriate.
She ultimately imposed the statutory minimum sentence, ordering Chirongoma to serve 20 years’ imprisonment.
