THE director of research in Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s Office, Thabani Mpofu, yesterday said he was unhappy with the manner in which the State had handled his case claiming prosecutor Jonathan Murombedzi was being used as a “pawn in a political game”.
Report by Phillip Chidavaenzi
Giving evidence in a case in which he is accused of contravening the Firearms Act after allegedly failing to renew a firearm certificate before Harare magistrate Anita Tshuma, Mpofu said during his tenure at the Attorney-General’s Office, he worked with Murombedzi and remembered him as a man of professional integrity. “The prosecutor and I have known each other for over 20 years and I have known him to be a man of integrity. Left to his own devices, he wouldn’t have prosecuted this case,” he said. Mpofu said the manner in which the police confiscated his documents was humiliating after they budged into the bathroom where his wife was relieving herself when he had advised them against doing so. He said one of the police officers who arrested him, Superintendent Luckson Mukazhi, was a friend and they worked together in the past during which he was a witness in cases that Mpofu prosecuted. “Mukazhi was my friend and witness in a lot of cases (I prosecuted) involving serious offences. He has been misleading prosecutors and the court. I feel the matter has not been accorded fairness because the witnesses sought to paint a misleading picture to this court,” he said. The trial continues today.
