Remand prisoners are rotting in jail, and the shameful state of Zimbabwe's prisons is compounding the situation, as Gift Phiri found out from a former inmate of the Harare Central Remand Prison. HARARE – “Hoyaaaah”, one inmate yells at the top of his voice at the break of dawn. Soon the clock will tick 5:30am, and the jingling sound of keys will bring hope of a new day.
With doors to the cells swung open, the stage, or cell leader, will shout foleey for the morning count, and small time crook, John Manenji, will put aside his concerns about the failure of the prison officers to take him to court once again; he will stop thinking briefly about the fate of his pregnant wife and three children at home, and turn to wondering about where and if he will sleep tonight.
He was thrown into this remand prison 42 days ago after snatching a handbag containing US$2000. Five times the truck which is supposed to ferry him to court has broken down. He is fast losing hope that he will see the inside of a courtroom for his remand hearing and braving another day in the prison is gruelling stuff.
The Harare Central Remand Prison, which was built during colonial Rhodesia to house black criminals, is in a woefully deteriorating condition. The remand section, designed to accommodate 70 inmates awaiting court verdicts, is bursting at the seams with 700 prisoners boarded in behind its walls.
Sleep standing up
The congestion is appalling, and inmates fight to secure a share of the precious floor space. For days Manenji was forced to sleep standing on his feet. During the day, the prisoners are exposed to the heat of the sun, with the only canopy in the yard sufficient to shelter just a few inmates at a time.
The food, which is served twice a day, is filthy and uncooked; the morning porridge is never served with sugar, whilst the unappetising lunch at 1pm consists of a bowl of water with cabbage and salt to represent soup, dished up with undercooked sadza. The poor nature of meals given to prisoners has made diarrhoea and cholera endemic killers.
The poor toilet facilities compound the problem, and Manenji wants to get out of the remand prison.
“I was thinking that its better for me to be convicted and go to jail than be in remand,” said Manenji, who spent 60 days as an inmate at the Harare Central remand Prison, after which time he was given an option of a fine.
The Criminal Procedure and Evidence Act outlaws holding a suspect in remand prison for more than 14 days. Legal experts said failing to bring remand prisoners to court was prejudicial to those in custody.
Advocate Aston Musunga said the prison authorities were putting the court in a difficult situation as they were sometimes stuck with suspects who are supposed to be in custody after court appearances.
Another Harare lawyer Tambudzai Gonese said: “Prisoners are put in custody to secure their attendance of their trial. However, this development will defeat the whole process as the suspects are put on remand for more than a month without going to court. This also creates backlogs in the courts.
Manenji said prisons were overflowing with small time crooks and most of those held in remand were first time offenders who have never been imprisoned by a court of law. With so many prisoners imprisoned by their poverty, and the apparently unresponsiveness of justice system to the situation, the overcrowding looks set to get worse.
Post published in: News