Harare deputy mayor, Emmanuel Chiroto, whose wife, Abigail, was murdered by suspected Zanu PF supporters in the run up to the 2008 Presidential election run-off says it was difficult to stem violence in the country unless perpetrators were brought to book.
Chiroto told NewsDay on the sidelines of a memorial service for victims of political violence that he knew his wife’s assailants.
He said the culprits even bragged they were immune to prosecution as long as President Robert Mugabe was still in charge.
Chiroto was among the families that were at Warren Hills Cemetery on Wednesday to unveil tombstones of the party’s slain activists including Tonderai Ndira, Cain Nyevhe, Godfrey Kauzani, Better Chokururama and Abigail Chiroto.
“The people who murdered my wife are still walking free and are boasting about it. I know who killed her and it pains me a lot that no justice has been done three years after her death,” Chiroto said.
“They say to me thousands died in Chimoio and Nyadzonia (Mozambique during the liberation war) so why cry for just a few people.
“If these murderers are not dealt with, violence will not stop in Harare and in the country,” said a distressed Chiroto.
Chiroto said he had moved out of the Hatcliffe house where his wife was killed because he could not live there anymore.
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He said on the fateful day, sometime in May 2008, a group of Zanu PF activists stormed their home looking for him. When they failed to find him they killed his defenceless wife.
“The commemoration was like a funeral to me and I carried a heavy burden,” he said.
Chiroto and his local MP and Home Affairs co-minister Theresa Makone, said they were being blocked from carrying out developmental projects in their Harare North constituency, particularly in Hatcliffe.
He said Zanu PF youths destroyed whatever they constructed.
