Chronicle Editor
Mashudu Netsianda, Senior Court Reporter
TWO MDC activists who were jailed together with anti-Government activist and Bulawayo South Constituency losing independent candidate in the 2018 harmonised elections, Josphat Ngulube for participating in the January 2019 violent demonstrations have been released on $2 000 bail pending appeal.
Melusi Moyo (33) and Thabisani Ngwenya (33) both of Sizinda suburb were among 11 other suspects arrested on charges of public violence after they burnt three cars, destroyed a precast wall and broke several windows of a house belonging to Zanu-PF Bulawayo provincial women’s league chairperson Cde Eva Bitu.
They were convicted for public violence and malicious damage to property by Bulawayo magistrate Mr Tinashe Tashaya. They were each sentenced to an effective six years in jail after one year was suspended on condition that they do not commit a similar offence in the next five years.
Moyo and Ngwenya were granted $2 000 bail each by Bulawayo High Court judge Justice Evangelista Kabasa following their application for bail pending appeal under case number HCA 196/19
In papers filed at the Bulawayo High Court, through their lawyer Mr Kholwani Ngwenya of TJ Mabhikwa and Partners, the State was cited as a respondent.
Justice Kabasa ordered the two applicants to report once every two weeks at Tshabalala Police Station and to continue residing at their given addresses until the finalisation of their appeal as part of the bail conditions.
In their bail statement, Moyo and Ngwenya said their appeal challenging both conviction and sentence had prospects for success, arguing that the evidence adduced by the State failed to sustain the allegations raised by the State beyond reasonable doubt.
“The trial court erred in relying on patently falsified testimonies from members of one political party against those of another. The trial court ought to have exercised great caution in accepting the testimonies of sworn political party rivals as evidence,” said Mr Ngwenya.
“The trial court erred in negating the evidence of a largely credible State witness who stated that the appellants left the scene of the acts of public violence prior to the burning of the vehicles. The trial court erred in arriving at the conclusion that the applicants acted in common purpose without evidence to that effect.”
The appellants argued that the evidence adduced in court and on record proved that there was strong political rivalry between them and the State witnesses thus compromising the veracity of their testimonies.
Moyo and Ngwenya argued that there was no evidence that they participated in the burning of the vehicle.
The appellants aver that their conviction and sentence was improper and their appeal enjoys prospects of success on appeal as the appeal court is likely to interfere and set aside their conviction and sentence.
In their grounds of appeal, Moyo and Ngwenya said the lower court erred by placing reliance on the evidence of suspect State witnesses whose testimonies did not corroborate each other in material respect.
The State did not oppose their application.
According to the State, on January 14 last year at around 7AM, Moyo, Ngwenya and their accomplices connived with about 100 other protesters, to unlawfully block the free movement of traffic at an intersection between Sizinda Road and Nketa Drive.
The mob confronted Cde Bitu at her home in Sizinda before shouting at her as they continued accusing her of benefiting from taxpayers’ money.
They threw stones and damaged window panes before pushing Cde Bitu’s Ford Ranger out of the yard and torching it.
The accused persons returned to the yard where they had left a Nissan NP300 and a Toyota Vitz. They also set alight the Nissan NP 300 whose flames partly destroyed the Toyota Vitz. The Ford Ranger and Nissan NP300 were burnt to ashes.
The total value of the destroyed property is US$95 000. — @mashnets.
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