Police in riot gear, armed with AK47 rifles, baton sticks and teargas canisters were in groups of more than ten details each and within ten metres from one group to the next, controlling traffic and barking orders to people.
Meanwhile, general workers from the Harare City Council were busy loading heaps of garbage onto refuse trucks which are an eyesore along Willowvale Road and the shopping centres in Budiriro and Glenview.
High Court Judge Justice Chinembiri Bhunu last Tuesday ordered that the trial must be held at Munyarari Bar at the Glenview 3 Shopping Centre where six witnesses in the trial of the 29 MDC-T murder suspects case said they were partying when the fateful incident occurred.
There will be police officers, prison officials, state prosecutors and lawyers representing the accused and the defendants alike.
“The council workers want to spruce up the image of the usually filthy suburbs which were the epicenter of the deadly cholera outbreak that killed thousands of people in 2008 and 2009. This is the reason why refuse trucks were deployed here to remove the garbage because the area will be a centre of attraction to the whole world. Journalists from the local and international media will be available to cover the event and authorities want to hide their incompetence,” said Prince Mupupuni, a local resident.
“The police fear a recurrence of the violence that claimed one of their own. They know they are the ones who incited the violence that led to the death of Inspector Mutedza hence their heavy presence is meant to intimidate people and thwart any uprising or demonstrations during the trial,” said a carpenter who identifies himself only as Ishmael.
Emotions are expected to run high as the trial of the activists, most of them Glenview residents will be at the venue where their friends and relatives will have an opportunity to see them after they spent a whole year in remand prison.
“It pains to see the suffering of these innocent people in the filthy prisons for a crime that they did not commit. The police officers have taken a law into their own hands. Look at the way they murdered the Shamva man on flimsy allegations that he had stolen from a senior police. That’s barbaric overzealosness, coupled with endless roadblocks mounted on all the roads, with the motive of klining their pockets at the expense of reducing road carnage,” said a relative of one of thwe accused who refused to be named.
Post published in: News