By Desmond Chingarande The trial of controversial builder George Katsimberis who is accused of fraud commenced on Friday despite an attempt by his 7th lawyer to oppose the commencement of trial by filing many dilatory and dubious court applications which were continuously dismissed by different magistrates.
Katsimberis was once represented by Tendai Biti who later abandoned the matter after several applications were dismissed by Magistrate Letween Rwodzi.
Biti had tried to stop and delay the trial by but according to prosecutor Michael Reza, it was an attempt to abuse the Court of law before he later abandoned his client.
Katsimberis again acquired the services of Charles Warara who tried to employ the same tactics used by Biti to delay the trial but he failed.
After Warara, Katsimberis hired Lewis Uriri and Shingi Mutumbwa of Murumbwa and Mugabe legal practitioners.
Aggrieved by the dismissal of the court applications Warara filed an application for recusal of Reza but it was dismissed by Rwodzi and they filed for an application for review at the High court which was also dismissed.
Warara was asking the court to force the state to furnish them with documents of further particulars that included the agreement entered between City of Harare and Augur Investments, the transcripts of High Court in matters that are not connected to the current fraud case.
Reza opposed the application saying the documents requested were not important to the matter as the documents which the state want to use were given to them.
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Warara insisted that the documents were of importance to their defence and said the matter will not proceed without those documents.
However Rwodzi again dismissed the application and ordered the trial to proceed.
On resumption of the matter yesterday, the presiding magistrate Rwodzi had recused self and the matter was handed over to magistrate Vongai Muchuchuti-Guwuriro.
