Senior cop forced to resign (30-11-06)

Charge of Hillside police station, has been forced to tender his resignation before the end of this month or “face a shameful exit” from his job.
Trouble for Ncube is said to have started on Thursday when he arrested three members of the National Youth Training Service who are on attachment with the police, enforcing price controls in the city.
“He had parked his service vehicle in the city when he was approached by a sobbing woman who told him that she had been conned of $120 000 by three youths, who had arrested her for allegedly dealing in foreign currency. Ncube, with three constables, drove the woman to the scene, arrested three youths, searched them and recovered the money, which they confessed to having shared between them,” said one source.
Chief Inspector Ncube is then said to have arrested the youths and detained them overnight. But their colleagues are said to have phoned Obert Mpofu, the Minister of Industry and International Trade, who in turn called Senior Assistant Commissioner Lee Muchemwa, the Officer Commanding police in the province, and ordered him to release the youths.
Ncube had already taken the docket to the Tredgold Magistrates’ court, where the youths were set to face charges under the Prevention of Corruption Act, so Mpofu ordered the prosecutor to drop the case.
Muchemwa is said to have written a memorandum to Police Commissioner Augustine Chihuri, who ordered Ncube should be sacked from his job if he did not tender his resignation before the end of this month.
“Frustrated at this victimisation for doing his job, Ncube tendered his resignation on Saturday, putting January 31 as his last working date,” said another source.
Contacted for comment, police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena said: “Whoever told you that is a liar. No member of the youth service was ever arrested and people must stop demonising the youths,” before switching off his mobile phone.
Investigations by The Zimbabwean revealed that three youths, Rhaen Mazhandu (23), Mthandazo Sibanda (23) and Tawanda Nyamukunda (25), were indeed arrested under Bulawayo Central Crime Register 625/11/2006, and detained under Detention Book number 1530/2006.
Mpofu confirmed that he intervened in the arrest of the youths, but said it was because they had committed a trivial offence.
“They were young men who had committed just a trivial offence and taking them to court would just spoil their otherwise good work. We are not fighting among ourselves, but are fighting economic enemies of the whole country. I did not order the victimisation of anyone in the police because I am not the Minister of Home Affairs,” he said.