A KADOMA woman, Kudzai Kanda (49), last Friday walked out of a week-long stay in police custody a free woman after the State failed to oppose a refusal for remand application by her lawyers.
Blessed Mhlanga
Kanda, accused of defeating or obstructing the course of justice, first appeared before Kadoma Magistrates’ Courts on August 28 and was remanded in custody.
However, owing to transport constraints, Kanda was held at Rimuka Police Station in holding cells, instead of remand prison.
Addressing the court, lawyer Caroline Mugabe rapped the State for violating Kanda’s rights, saying she should not have been returned to the police after appearing in court.
“She was denied basic rights and fundamental liberties by the State, which saw it fit to remand my client in police holding cells,” she said.
Mugabe went further to tell the court that the State did not have any reasonable grounds to hold Kanda on remand, because they had no case against her.
Kanda was accused of disposing of a knife her daughter had allegedly used to stab an unidentified person to death.
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Mugabe told the court that Christabel had pleaded guilty to assaulting her victim with a broken beer bottle a month before the victim died and the State had accepted that plea.
“It will be folly for the State to now turn around and accuse my client of throwing away a knife used to kill the victim, when the same State told this court that Christabel had used a broken bottle to commit the crime,” she said.
“Where is the knife now coming from?”
The application was granted by provincial magistrate Farai Gwitima after the State, represented by Clever Chikadiwa, failed to oppose the application.
