The Constitutional Court (ConCourt) yesterday indefinitely postponed an application by a Harare man, who is seeking to challenge the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission’s (Zacc) arresting powers after he was arrested early this year on allegations of attempting to defeat the course of justice.
BY CHARLES LAITON
The matter failed to materialise after Malvern Chimutashu’s lawyer, Clemence Ngweshiwa, made an application for postponement, saying he needed time to read Zacc’s heads of argument.
In his application for a postponement, Ngweshiwa said his client was ill and he had not had time to go through the State’s heads of argument, since the lawyer had only received the court papers on Tuesday evening, giving him no time to peruse the papers.
His application was not opposed by the State’s representative, Richard Chikosha, who also made a similar application on the basis that Chimutashu had given the State with an incomplete court record and that his application did not contain any draft order.
The court was left with no option, but to postpone the matter indefinitely by consent in order to allow Ngweshiwa to consult his client and attend to the State’s concerns.
Chimutashu (33) made headlines early this year, when he allegedly approached the State’s key witness in a matter involving Higher Education deputy minister Godfrey Gandawa, trying to facilitate the withdrawal of the case.
It is the State’s case that Chimutashu was arrested while in possession of an affidavit, which sought to influence a State witness to withdraw charges levelled against Gandawa, but, in his application to the ConCourt, the applicant alleges the affidavit was prepared by Zacc officials in order to nail the deputy minister.
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Chimutashu further said the fact that no witness observed him handing over the copy, was a clear sign that the Zacc officers prepared the document and used its key witness to politically tarnish his image and the deputy minister’s, saying Zacc had no legal standing to arrest him.
