Harare High Court judge Justice Happias Zhou yesterday freed incarcerated former Air Zimbabwe legal secretary Grace Pfumbidzayi on $5 000 bail pending appeal, a day after her co-accused former AirZim group chief executive officer Peter Chikumba was released.
BY CHARLES LAITON
The two were early this year convicted of criminal abuse of office by regional magistrate Fadzayi Mtombeni and sentenced to seven-year jail terms each.
As part of her bail conditions, Pfumbidzayi was ordered to surrender her title deeds and passport, to reside at her given address and to report twice every week at Harare Central Police Station.
Interestingly, although both were convicted on the same charge and are now on bail pending appeal, they were released on different grounds and facts by two judges of the High Court.
Justice Zhou said Pfumbidzayi had prospects of success on appeal because when she took the decision to appoint Navistar Insurance Brokers, one and a half months after its insurance policy had expired, there was an emergency that existed and she had to act as such.
“As noted above, the undisputed evidence clearly shows that the national airline was operating contrary to the law in circumstances where it, as well as members of the public, were exposed to danger by not being insured. That, to me, constituted an emergency,” Justice Zhou said.
“In respect of the sentence imposed, Mr Muchini for the respondent (prosecutor), properly conceded that the learned magistrate misdirected herself by relying on cases dealing with offences such as bribery when the offence which the appellant (Pfumbidzayi) was convicted of was different . . . given the admitted misdirection arising out of reliance on cases dealing with a different offence, the appeal against sentence has prospects of success.”
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On the other hand, Chikumba was freed by Justice Joseph Mafusire on bail pending appeal on the basis of changed circumstances when it was established that Chikumba could have been wrongly charged and convicted as a public officer when AirZim was a private entity.
“I was satisfied that the discovery, even at the last stage, that the applicant (Chikumba) may not have been a public officer, and therefore may have been wrongly charged and wrongly convicted, constituted changed circumstances,” Justice Mafusire said.
“To say the chief executive officer of Air Zimbabwe Holdings, a private company, is the same thing as ‘a paid office in the service of the State’ is absurd . . .
In my view, the appellant was not a public officer. In my view, the appeal court is likely to find the appellant was wrongly convicted.”
Pfumbidzayi is represented by Advocate Webster Chinamora instructed by Andrew Muvirimi.
