Grace is said to have paid Johannesburg-based businessman Ping Sung Hsieh $1 million to purchase six haulage trucks and trailers in 2008, but Ping failed to deliver.
Observers are asking why the Office of the Attorney General and an officer of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe travelled to South Africa to argue on her behalf.
Zimbabwean state prosecutor Chris Mutangadura was unsuccessful as the magistrate found the case to be a civil dispute, and criticized him for submitting a contradictory affidavit and for failing to prove that fraud had been committed.
Four drivers employed by Ping were under house arrest in Harare after being detained when they delivered four trucks Ping had contracted to supply. The deal went back to 2008, involving funds transferred by the Reserve Bank, an alleged partnership in a Chinhoyi gold mine, and an undercover Zimbabwean police woman.
The short version of the tangled saga is that Ping initially failed to deliver the haulage trucks, but eventually did so in part, leading to the arrest of the drivers.
Lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa, representing the four drivers, told VOA Studio 7 that it was baffling to see senior government officials in South Africa acting in what was a private extradition case.
“What interest is it for the Reserve Bank if I have been cheated by my business partner?” Mtetwa demanded. She noted that the Attorney General’s office rarely if ever dispatched prosecutors to other hearings in South Africa, even in robbery cases.
“Even if it was criminal, the A-G does not need to be there because the application is by the state of South Africa to the South African court,” added Mtetwa, a prominent human rights defender.
Arnold Tsunga, director of the Africa Programme of the International Commission of Jurists, said it is an abuse of state power for the Office of the Attorney General to step into a civil matter involving private individuals.
“This is one of those examples which shows the ‘big-man syndrome’ in Africa where the big man becomes bigger than state institutions and is seen as operating beyond equality of the law," Tsunga said.
Efforts to obtain comment on the case from the Office of the Attorney General and the Reserve Bank were unsuccessful.
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