A STATE witness in the trial of incarcerated cleric Robert Martin Gumbura and eight others who are facing charges of organising and attempting a jailbreak, Claudius Mutizwa, yesterday jibed at defence lawyer Tapson Dzvetero, accusing him of having a “very poor” memory.
BY SILENCE CHARUMBIRA
Dzvetero had commenced his continuation of cross-examining the witness by asking whether it was correct that Mutizwa had said he was appointed head of prison security in 2008.
Mutizwa initially corrected the defence lawyer by indicating he had said he was an informer and not head of security.
Dzvetero then rephrased his question and in response, Mutizwa shot back: “Your worship, I think the defence counsel’s memory is very poor. I never said that, but I said I was appointed an informer in 2013.”
“Maybe if I can ask the court to check on the record,” Dzvetero said before magistrate Francis Mapfumo indicated he too had recorded 2013.
The trial then proceeded with Mutizwa continuing on his “no comment” stance while Dzvetero accused him of lying.
The witness also maintained he had seen Gumbura writing several letters to ousted Vice-President Joice Mujuru and other prisoners.
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On being asked what the contents of Mujuru’s letters were, he said he had only seen the addressee and not the contents while Gumbura penned several letters in the library of the “B” Hall section at Chikurubi Maximum Prison.
Dzvetero then enquired on whether Mutizwa had actually seen Gumbura participate in the riots on March 13, 2015, the day when there were disturbances at the prison, and he said he saw him singing.
“Did you ever see the first accused person assaulting anyone?” Dzvetero asked to which Mutizwa responded by a “no comment”.
“Did you witness the first accused person damaging property at any point at the material time?” The witness responded: “No comment.”
“After the incident were you not also bundled as one of the bad apples by the prison authorities?” Dzvetero asked.
“As I said previously, I was working as an informer so it was a way of distracting the attention of the other prisoners and it was also done for my personal security,” Mutizwa said.
The duo then went into another tussle when Dzvetero asked the witness as to who had done so to protect him and the latter said he had “no comment”.
“The reason why you do not have any comments is because you are a liar and if you comment we will then see that you are lying,” Dzvetero said.
“Your worship, the defence counsel is entitled to his own opinion,” Mutizwa said calmly.
The matter was then postponed to Monday next week for continuation.
