A LOCAL doctor, who two months ago, carried out a scan on a South African woman suspected to have swallowed cocaine capsules in a bid to smuggle them into Zimbabwe, yesterday admitted that his scan results could be false.
BY DESMOND CHINGARANDE
The sonographer, Damian Murambasvina, told Harare magistrate Josephine Sande that there were possibilities that the scan produced false results.
“There is a possibility that the scan picked false results, that is why I suggested further tests,” he said, as he testified in the case involving a suspected South African drug mule, Isaura Masinga.
Murambasvina said when the results came out, he only suggested that there were body packs inside the suspect’s abdomen.
“Body packs can be a drug packed in a balloon or a condom, but the scan did not conclude it’s cocaine.”
Masinga (40) has been languishing in remand prison since her arrest two months ago after landing at Harare International Airport and was initially charged with possession of dangerous drugs.
She now faces a lesser charge of defeating the course of justice.
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Masinga indicated at the close of the State’s case that she would file for discharge tomorrow, with the magistrate expected to make her ruling on the application on July 4.
The case has been punctuated by dramatic twists and turns, as the State kept shifting goalposts, after it emerged that it could not sustain its earlier allegations.
After the second scan failed to prove that Masinga had drugs stashed inside her abdomen, the State requested for a longer remand, hoping the drugs would be recovered.
The State also asked the court to order prison officials to give her solid foods hoping she would excrete the drug, but to no avail.
The State now wants Masinga to be charged with making false pregnancy claims in order to avoid exposure to a CT scan, but she has argued that she assumed that she was pregnant after missing her menstrual periods.
Peter Kachirika is prosecuting the case.
