daniel chigunwe
Fidelis Munyoro Chief Court Reporter
A Budiriro man in Harare will spend three years in jail for fatally assaulting his pregnant wife during a domestic dispute last year after being convicted of culpable homicide.
Mcdonald Chiveto subjected his wife Sharon Munhenga to constant battering and at one point he attacked his wife with a metal bar. He also poured two buckets of water upon her for a good measure and later arbitrarily hit the victim again with a dolphin pot all over her body.
Originally charged with murder, which requires proof that the killer intended death or that this can be construed from the actions of the killer, Chiveto pleaded not guilty. But he offered a limited plea of guilty to a lesser charge of culpable homicide when he appeared before High Court judge, Justice Anne-Lucy Mungwari for trial.
Culpable homicide means the killer was to blame for the death, although death was not intended, by taking action, or showing a high level of negligence, that a reasonable person would recognise was likely to lead to serious injury or death.
Sentencing depends on circumstances and can range from a fine to long jail terms. The prosecution accepted the limited plea, resulting in both parties’ counsel coming up with a statement of agreed facts outlining all common cause facts.
The statement was admitted into court culminating in the Chiveto being found not guilty of murder but of culpable homicide. Justice Mungwari sentenced Chiveto to four years in jail but suspended one year on usual conditions.
The callousness exhibited by Chiveto towards his pregnant wife was more than shocking and the judge found that Munhenga could not have survived from the persistent prolonged and intermittent assaults on her.
“The very act of using violence at all, let alone on a pregnant woman, is an act of gross negligence,” said Justice Mungwari. “No matter how angered the accused may have been over any perceived infidelity issues, assault upon her person leading to her collapse and subsequent demise due to internal bleeding was not commensurate.”
The court agreed with the prosecution that this was a crime that warranted a term of imprisonment and not a suspended sentence as prayed for by Chiveto’s legal counsel.
Justice Mungwari in her judgment made it clear that disputes of whatever kind and manner cannot be resolved by violence as in most instances this results in the loss of life as occurred in this case.
“There is, therefore, need for deterrent sentence that will send word to men in the society that courts do not condone the battering of their wives,” she said.
Munhenga’s family demanded eight beasts during her burial at Zororo Memorial Park and left the deceased’s clothes with the in-laws, indicating that distribution of the clothes would only be done after their demands had been met.
Following the assault, Munhenga is said to have left a note in her wardrobe which explained what had transpired.
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