KAROI, Aug. 3 (NewsDay Live) – Zanu PF Hurungwe East legislator Chenjerai Kangausaru has been acquitted of charges of defeating or obstructing the course of justice after a Karoi magistrate ruled that the State had failed to prove its case.
Magistrate Edwin Marecha discharged Kangausaru at the close of the State case, finding that prosecutors had not produced sufficient evidence to establish the offence beyond reasonable doubt.
Kangausaru had been charged under Section 184 of the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act. Prosecutors alleged that on January 5, 2022, he submitted two fraudulent offer letters for Subdivision 1 of Chitongo Farm in Karoi, purportedly signed by the then Minister of Lands, in an attempt to mislead the court in civil case C/509/23.
In a judgment delivered on July 22, 2026, Marecha said the prosecution’s case failed because it did not call a competent witness from the Ministry of Lands to authenticate or challenge the documents.
“With no evidence from the relevant Ministry regarding the origin and genuineness of the documents tendered by the accused, one is left to wonder the legal basis for bringing a witness who had no capacity to represent the Ministry,” Marecha ruled.
The court heard evidence from only one State witness, Vincent Tendai, who is the opposing party in the civil dispute. A second witness, Fidel Muzorewa of the Ministry of Lands, was not called after the ministry reportedly declined to authorise him to testify despite several postponements since May 2023.
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According to the ruling, the ministry, through its legal officer Garisa, distanced itself from Muzorewa, rendering any intended testimony inadmissible.
“In the absence of an official representative of the Ministry… there is no way that the genuineness or otherwise of the documents tendered will be established,” Marecha said.
The magistrate also found no evidence that Kangausaru’s actions had defeated or obstructed the administration of justice.
“There was no evidence so far… that the judicial proceedings under case C/509/23 were defeated or obstructed,” the court ruled.
Applying the test under Section 198(3) of the Criminal Procedure and Evidence Act, Marecha concluded that there was no basis on which a reasonable court could convict.
“I cannot say safely that this court could, acting carefully, convict the accused person on the basis of the evidence adduced so far,” she said.
Kangausaru, who was represented by Samuel Muyemeki of Mapaya Legal Practitioners, maintained that he believed the offer letters were genuine and denied any intention to interfere with the civil proceedings.
The acquittal brings to an end more than three years of criminal proceedings arising from the disputed land documents.