FORMER MP for Masvingo Urban, Tongai Matutu, was yesterday detained for about five hours at Masvingo Central Police Station in connection with his conviction for assaulting Chief Serima, born Vengesai Rushwaya, in 2010.
Tatenda Chitagu OWN CORRESPONDENT
Matutu, who has now defected to the MDC Renewal Team from MDC-T, was found guilty of the offence and fined $100 or spend 25 days in prison. He paid the fine, but appealed against both sentence and conviction.
But in a surprising turn of events, detectives from Masvingo Central Police Station, armed with a warrant of arrest, picked him up at his offices in town and detained him for more than five hours before releasing him.
The reasons for the arrests, according to Matutu’s lawyer, Martin Mureri, were that his appeal was dismissed.
The same reason is also stated on the warrant of arrest that “Appellant failed to comply with rule 22 (2) and his appeal was dismissed.”
But Mureri said magistrate Oliver Mudzongachiso, who presided over the matter, erred at law.
“We did not do a follow-up to the appeal. We appealed in principle, but then the magistrate was not supposed to issue him (Matutu) a warrant of arrest since he had paid the fine.
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“The magistrate erred here because there was no way we were going to appeal without paying the fine, otherwise he would have been locked up if he had not paid,” Mureri said.
He also produced a receipt of payment of the fine dated December 9 2010.
