Nearly two months after the death of Retired Army General Solomon Mujuru in a mysterious fire at his Beatrice farm, police are still not prepared to make public results of the probe, although they insist investigations have been completed.
The Mujuru family, including his widow Vice-President Joice Mujuru, is keen to have the results of the police investigations, but they have been kept in the dark. Insiders, however, revealed to NewsDay the police were pushing for an inquest as preliminary investigations point to foul play.
Police spokesperson Senior Assistant Commissioner Wayne Bvudzijena said investigations had been completed, but the police were waiting “for the next stage”, which he refused to reveal.
“We have finalised our investigations and have compiled a number of statements among them the post-mortem report, statements from witnesses and other technical matters. We are now waiting for the next stage.”
Sources said the next stage could be an inquest into the death. Bvudzijena refused to discuss why the Vice-President had not been updated on developments. VP Mujuru on Saturday told villagers in Rushinga, Mashonaland Central — after touring community projects — she was still waiting for the report on the cause of the death of her husband.
“Thank you for coming in your numbers to mourn your son-in-law seven weeks ago before we knew what really happened to him,” she said.
“I am still waiting for an explanation.”
On Thursday last week, parliamentarians demanded the release of the probe results, saying the delay in making public the results of the investigations had resulted in conspiracy theories. But Bvudzijena on Friday told NewsDay the nation should be patient and allow “due processes” to be followed.
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“All due processes will have to be followed,” he said. “You can’t just say you want it (information on the probe) and, therefore, it should be available.”
MDC-T MPs yesterday demanded that an independent external investigation team be set up to investigate the mysterious death of Retired General Mujuru in an inferno at his farm on August 16.
Debating the matter in the House of Assembly, the MPs also demanded that an interim report of police initial findings be made public to dispel speculation over the ex-army supremo’s death.
Kambuzuma MP Willias Madzimure said it was surprising that the police were always said to be unavailable whenever such painful incidents happened, but whenever there was a demonstration by political parties that were not Zanu PF they were deployed in large numbers to quash the protests.
