BULAWAYO police detectives allegedly raided prominent businessman and MDC-T activist Dyreen Simon Spooner’s home last Saturday ostensibly in search of spray guns, oil paints and other materials deemed detrimental to State security. REPORT BY SILAS NKALA STAFF REPORTER
Spooner’s lawyer Lizwe Jamela confirmed the raid, adding the police detectives were armed with a search warrant.
“Yes, police visited Spooner’s home on Saturday to conduct a search. He is out of town,(but) they only found his wife. They said they were searching for information detrimental to the State and many other materials,” Jamela said.
Spooner once served as an aide to Education minister David Coltart during the 2000 elections.
Part of the search warrant, date stamped October 25 2012 and signed by Superintendent Joshua Mhandu of the Law and Order Criminal Investigations Department read: “It appears to me from information on oath that there are reasonable grounds for believing that there is in possession, or under the control of Dyreen Simon Spooner at or upon or in residential premises of the said Spooner, certain article(s), that is to say spray guns, oil paints and documents containing information which adversely affect the interest of the State.
“This is therefore to require you to seize the above mentioned articles and to that end you are authorised where necessary, to search any person identified in this warrant and to enter and search the premises identified in this warrant.”
Jamela said Spooner is a known MDC-T activist, who was once arrested for the murder of Bulawayo war veterans leader Cain Nkala in November 2001.
“The search at his home means that he has always been followed since that time,” he said. “I cannot rule out intimidation in this matter.”
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He was detained for nearly one month following his arrest and released after Supreme Court judge Justice Simbarashe Muchechetere ordered his release from remand prison.
Spooner was later acquitted by the High Court on charges linking him to the murder case.
Nkala was abducted from his Bulawayo home and his body was found buried in a shallow grave near Matopos a week later.
