admin
The quartet told the court that they had complaints against the police who arrested them and the prosecutor, Mr Malvern Nzombe indicated that the State was opposed to bail.
He also told the court that the State was ready to go to trial. The trial is set for the regional courts.
It is the State case that on Wednesday this week, at about 1pm, the quartet approached Wilson Kamba, Mugove Nhete and Danny Mpofu together with other rank marshals operating from outside Mac’s Garage along Leopold Takawira Avenue.
The trio, with others, tout for commuters going to Gwanda, Filabusi and Masvingo.
The State is alleging that the quartet ordered the rank marshals into a blue commuter omnibus the quartet was driving in against the rank marshals’ will.
They drove to Davies Hall, which houses the Zanu-PF Bulawayo provincial headquarters where they allegedly demanded that the complainants and their counterparts pay $50 per route daily.
They allegedly told the rank marshals that the money paid would be used to fuel Zanu-PF vehicles which were parked at Davies Hall.
The State will seek to prove that they told the complainants that if they failed to pay the amount, they would not operate from Mac’s Garage.
The complainants then requested the quartet to revise the figure downwards and after some discussions, it was agreed that the complainants would pay $12 for the Masvingo
route, $7 for the Gwanda route and $5 for the Filabusi route.
After the agreement, the court heard that the quartet told the complainants to call them whenever police wanted to arrest them and they would stop the arrest.
The complainants were released at 3pm after the quartet had told them that they would come to collect “their” money later.
At 3.45pm, the quartet went to Mac’s Garage to collect “their” money and detectives who had been tipped-off about the incident pounced and arrested them before they had received anything.
Online Reporter