PROSECUTOR-General (PG)’s Office’s bid seeking to have a stiffer penalty against MDC-T deputy national chairman and senator Morgen Komichi went up in smoke yesterday after High Court judge Justice Felistus Chatukuta dismissed the State’s application for acceptance of late filing of an application seeking leave to appeal against a “lenient sentence” imposed on the MP.
BY SENIOR COURT REPORTER
The matter was dealt with in Justice Chatukuta’s chambers where Komichi was represented by Aleck Muchadehama while the PG’s Office was represented by Michael Mugabe.
Muchadehama said: “The State’s application for condonation for late filing of an application seeking leave to appeal has been dismissed by the court.”
Komichi was last year convicted of fraud and contravening the Electoral Act and sentenced to a wholly-suspended 18-month jail term by Harare provincial magistrate Tendai Mahwe.
The State, however, intimated it would appeal against Komichi’s “lenient” community service and seek for a custodial sentence at the High Court, but failed to file the paperwork in time.
The MDC-T deputy national chairman was arrested two days before the general elections in July last year after he was allegedly given a stray ballot paper found in a bin at Harare International Conference Centre and he handed it over to Zimbabwe Electoral Commission.
He spent 100 days in remand prison from the time of his arrest on July 28.
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The magistrate then set aside eight months of the sentence on condition that Komichi would not commit a similar offence in the next five years.
He further suspended the remainder of the sentence on condition the senator performed 350 hours of community service at Mabelreign Clinic in Harare.
