THE case of MDC-T activist Stanley Saruwaka accused of theft after demanding his share of the free Presidential farming inputs, did not start at the Mutare courts yesterday after police failed to produce the court documents.
BY CLAYTON MASEKESA
Saruwaka was arrested and spent a night in police cells on March 7 this year after demanding his share of the farming inputs bankrolled by the government under the Presidential Inputs Scheme.
He was released the following day after the intervention of Netsai Nyamwanza from the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights.
On his release, police advised him that he would be taken to court on March 18.
Nyamwanza yesterday told NewsDay that the case failed to start as police said they were not ready to take the matter to the courts in the absence of the requisite documents.
“The case failed to start because the public prosecutor said they were not yet ready to begin the case as the police had no documents on the case. We will be advised when they are ready,” she said.
Also at the same court last month, the case of five MDC-T activists who were arrested and charged with public violence after they allegedly stormed a government free seed distribution programme in Samarenga Village, Honde Valley, demanding their share of the farming inputs, failed to take place as the police did not produce the court papers.
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Tempers flared when a self-styled war veteran, Peter Mukangaise, allegedly declared that MDC-T members were not entitled to the seeds and fertiliser sourced under the Presidential Inputs Scheme. This reportedly led to violent clashes with the MDC-T activists who insisted that they were entitled to the free farming inputs.
The Zimbabwe Human Rights Association, an alliance of non-governmental organisations which campaign for human rights, then mounted a constitutional challenge to partisan distribution of agricultural inputs by government.
The Constitutional Court is yet to make a ruling.