FORMER Finance minister Tendai Biti’s application for referral of his assault case to the Constitutional Court has been dismissed by Harare magistrate Vongari Guwuriro who said she had dealt with the application twice before.
Biti, through his lawyer Alec Muchadehama, has denied the charge. He has claimed receiving an unfair trial and infringement of his constitutional rights.
His latest application filed amid his defence case in a matter he is accused of verbally assaulting a local businesswoman Tatiana Aleshina at the Harare Magistrates Court in 2020, was dismissed this afternoon because it was not different from the two previous applications.
In dismissing the applications, Guwuriro said the court could not continue dealing with the same application, producing the same results.
After the ruling, Muchadehama asked for a postponement of the trial for case management to allow for re-arrangement of the exhibits so that they are in order.
But the magistrate shot down the request saying she could not postpone the matter after Biti indicated that he would take long to submit his defence.
Biti told the court that he had clocked 102 days in court over the assault allegations where he has submitted more than 1 000 documents to the High Court citing infringement of his constitutional rights.
Guwuriro postponed the matter to November 21 for case management.
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