HARARE High Court judge Justice Happious Zhou yesterday reserved judgment in a case where a Harare man, Francis Maramwidze, is seeking to have Bikita West MP, Munyaradzi Kereke, prosecuted over allegations of raping his 11-year-old relative’ daughter at gun point almost four years ago. CHARLES LAITON SENIOR COURT REPORTER
Prosecutor-General (PG)’s representative Sharon Fero said her office had acted according to its constitutional mandate in declining to prosecute Kereke.
She said Maramwidze was at liberty to pursue private prosecution if he so wished. Kereke’s lawyer advocate Lewis Uriri urged the court to dismiss Maramwidze’s application arguing he had no right to insist on public prosecution when the PG had declined it. “The issue of public prosecution should be closely restricted lest it be abused,” he said.
Through his lawyer, Charles Warara, the girl’s guardian who is the applicant in the matter, accused the police of incompetence.
Warara said the PG’s office, was also biased in the manner it had dealt with Kereke’s rape docket after allegedly declining to prosecute the case which was still being investigated by police.
“The failure by both the police and the prosecuting authority, to arrest and take the third respondent (Kereke) to court was a denial of applicants’ rights to proper administration of justice,” he said.
Warara said when the matter was initially reported in September 2010, the police were expected to arrest and take Kereke to the PG’s office for referral to the courts, but that was never done.
“The second respondent (PG) is purported to have declined prosecuting the matter and one wonders on what basis that decision was made since there was no arrest made,” Warara said.
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“What happened was simply that after a year of inaction by police, Maramwidze wrote a letter of complaint to the police, a copy of which was sent to the PG’s office and acting on that letter the PG requested the docket from the police and what followed was a decline to prosecute the matter.
“The would-be accused (Kereke) was never brought before the police and never before the courts. Why then would the PG intervene in a matter that was simply being investigated by police?”
