HARARE Police have summonsed four journalists from a local private weekly newspaper to testify as state witnesses in the trial of Harare Mayor Muchadeyi Masunda and eight councillors charged with criminal defamation for allegedly leaking or publishing a report implicating businessman Philip Chiyangwa iPolice last Friday served the summonses on The Standard editor-in-chief Vincent Kahiya, editor Nevanji Madanhire and reporters Jeniffer Dube and Feluna Nleya who co-authored the story that exposed the land scandal that had been exposed by the Harare City Councils special committee on land. The journalists quoted a special land investigations report on Chiyangwas properties in Harare.
The state alleges that the nine whose trial has been set for May 6 leaked a report which was published last month by The Standard, a local newspaper, and The Sunday Times of South Africa and which portrayed Chiyangwa, a relative of President Robert Mugabe, as a fraudster. Incensed by the contents of the report Chiyangwa has sued both council and The Standard newspaper for a whopping US$900 million saying he had suffered losses to his companies and damages to his reputation because of the council report.
Chief law officer Chris Mutangadura said the state was ready to go for trial with some of the people who are named in the land scandal as witnesses. Mutangadura said Harare City Council town clerk Tendai Mahachi, director of urban planning Psychology Chiwanga and finance director Cosmos Zvikaramba are some of the witnesses that would be testifying in court.
We are ready to go for trial and some of the witnesses are going to be the journalists who wrote the story about Chiyangwas land deal, said Mutangadura. Chiwanga and Zvikaramba were two weeks ago reported to the police by acting mayor Charity Bango for facilitating Chiyangwas illegal land deals. Police spokesperson Wayne Bvudzijena confirmed that the police have the report and they were carrying out investigations but said no arrests have been made so far.
The 54-page report compiled by a committee of Harare city councillors alleges that Chiyangwa and Local Government Minister Ignatius Chombo another relative of Mugabe and senior member of Zanu (PF) party with assistance of two council employees, illegally grabbed vast tracts of prime land from the city on the cheap, without following proper procedure.
Chiyangwa, a former Zanu (PF) provincial chairman, also influenced council officials to sell him municipal land and in some cases paying well below the market value for the property, according to the report. The alleged land scandal which on paper appears a simple case of suspected fraud and corruption has assumed a political dimension mimicking the power struggle within the unity government of Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai.
Post published in: News