MUTARE In a bizarre twist in the trial of a director of a diamond mining firm charged with stealing diamonds a prosecutor here fought desperately to have the matter postponed by falsely claiming that witnesses had failed to pitch up. (Pictured: Illegal miners digging for diamonds at Ma
When his claim about absent witnesses was proved to be untrue, prosecutor Aaron Nyamasoka was not deterred. He simply changed tack, asking the court to defer the matter this time because another prosecutor, Michael Mugabe, who originally worked on the case was away.
An unimpressed provincial magistrate Lucy Mungwari berated Nyamasoka for acting unprofessionally and at first refused to postpone the case but later relented and agreed to move the trial of South African citizen Koliman Packirisamy to March 15.
If Mugabe is not around for three years would that mean the trial wont take place, or if I am not available nothing happens, do we not have other competent prosecutors, magistrates here?
Did we not train to read and go through dockets and matters done in our absence for us to take them over? said Mungwari rejecting Nyamasokas increasingly desperate attempts to have the trial deferred.
In his first attempt to have the trial shelved, Nyamasoka had told the court that the state could not proceed with the case because three out of five witnesses he planned to call to testify were absent. Among the absent was main witness Lovemore Chorotwe, the prosecutor claimed.
But defence lawyers immediately challenged the Nyamasokas claims and asked the court to order a roll call of witnesses. When the witnesses were called, it turned out that only Chorotwe was absent but all other witnesses were at court ready to testify.
An irate Mungwari accused the prosecutor of playing hide and seek and of behaving as if he had something to hide. However said she would give the state the benefit of the doubt and eventually agreed to shelve the matter until next month.
Packirisamy, who is a director with Canadile Miners that is one of two firms engaged to mine diamonds at the controversial Marange field, was arrested two weeks ago at a police check point at Hot Springs along the Mutare-Masvingo highway after he was found with 57 pieces of raw diamonds worth US$28 000.
The police said the pieces of diamonds had not been recorded with the Canadile Miners register as required by the company.
Packirisamy, 37, is out of custody on US$2 700 bail and was asked to surrender his passport to the clerk of court and to report to police once every week.
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