Third witness testifies in Biti assault trial

Prosper Dembedza

Herald Correspondent

The trial of opposition politician Tendai Biti, who is facing charges of assaulting businesswoman and investor Mrs Tatiana Aleshina at the Harare Magistrates Court in 2020, continued yesterday with the third witness, Mr Michael Van Blerk, telling the defence that any questions involving Augur Investments were irrelevant and had nothing to do with the assault case.

During cross examination by Biti’s lawyer Mr Alec Muchadehama, Mr Van Blerk told the court that he could not comment on anything that had to do with Augur Investments and its companies as he retired from the company in 2018.

Despite Mr Van Blerk telling the court that he could not answer any questions about Augur, Mr Muchadehama kept demanding him to answer his questions with regards the company.

This prompted Mr Van Blerk to tell the court that the defence was failing to understand the English language as they kept on asking what he had answered already.

During the last sitting, Mr Van Blerk asked the court to let the defence read the charges again as he argued that the defence was losing track of the matter before the court.

Last week, Mr Van Blerk told the court that he had to intercept a visibly angry Biti as he charged aggressively towards Mrs Aleshina.

During his testimony, Mr Van Blerk told the court that when the incident took place, he was standing in the court corridor with Mrs Aleshina and Mr Simbarashe Kadye.

“I heard Biti shouting and charging towards Mrs Aleshina and I jumped in between to defend her,” h said.

Mr Van Blerk said Biti was shouting, “stupid, stupid” while charging towards Mrs Aleshina.

He said Mrs Aleshina did not say anything in response to Biti’s violent action as she was in shock.