HIGHER Education minister Jonathan Moyo claims the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (Zacc) had taken a position to arrest him before completing its investigations on his alleged fraud case and wanted to detain him in custody until he was brought to court.
BY Everson Mushava
Moyo and his deputy, Godfrey Gandawa, and Zimbabwe Manpower Development Funds boss Frederick Mandizvidza are being accused of siphoning over $400 000 from Zimdef.
Gandawa and Mandizvidza appeared in court yesterday, but Moyo did not appear after launching a Constitutional Court (ConCourt) application challenging the legality of his arrest by Zacc arguing the anti-graft body does not have arresting powers.
In his ConCourt application in which Moyo chronicled how he was treated on Wednesday when he appeared before Zacc for questioning, the Higher Education minister claimed the anti-graft body wanted to detain him in custody until he appeared before the courts. He said some of the commissioners were hostile to him, his lawyers and security aides and indicated they had already taken a position to arrest him even before completing their investigations.
“The intention of Zacc was crystal clear. They wanted to detain me until I was brought to court on these incomplete investigations,” Moyo claimed.
Farai Mashonganyika-Chinyani, who is a commissioner, Silas Pando, the secretary, Lovemore Finde a Zacc investigator, Alex Masiye, Zacc chief investigations officer, and a sergeant Munyaradzi Chacha were part of the panel that interviewed Moyo.
Moyo claimed that after being quizzed by Zacc for five hours, Finde, who led the interview, handed him over to Chacha who pronounced that he had already been charged and should appear in court, “without even making a commitment to see the papers that I told them I had as my defence”.
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“Professor Moyo, now we wish to advise you that we have been carrying out an investigation for four months and, in fact, had already concluded that you had committed the crime of abuse of office. We had just called you in to hear what you had to say. I now hand over to my colleague, Sergeant Chacha,” Moyo quoted Finde.
“These were not the opening remarks prior to the ‘interview’. In fact, they had tried to exclude my legal practitioner on the basis that this was just that. The necessary implication being that it was not a formal hearing to ascertain whether criminal conduct had been perpetrated.”
Moyo added: “Sergeant Chacha then went on to read a warned-and-cautioned statement, which contained about five charges. Regrettably, I do not have a copy of the warned-and-cautioned statement as they refused to let me have this, indicating to my lawyers that we were not entitled to it and we would see it in court.”
Moyo, in his application against Zacc, queried how the anti-graft body formed a “reasonable suspicion of the commission of a crime without looking at these.”
He said the anti-graft body has no arresting and detention powers and was acting unconstitutionally. Moyo is also challenging the order by National Prosecuting Authority acting Prosecutor-General Ray Goba to direct Police Commissioner-General to arrest him.
