A SOUTH AFRICA-BASED Zimbabwean man, popularly known as injiva, who is charged with allegedly snatching his estranged wife’s child last month, on Monday accused the court of bias by listening to his wife’s claims.
SILAS NKALA STAFF REPORTER
Caleb Sibanda (39) of Pumula South is alleged to have tried to snatch his wife’s daughter from her grandmother at Sekusile shopping centre in Nkulumane.
Sibanda denied charges of kidnapping and assault when he appeared before Bulawayo Regional Court magistrate Mark Dzira.
Sibanda was married to Sisasenkosi Donga in 1998, but the pair reportedly separated in 2010 after the wife gave birth to the daughter now in dispute.
Donga insists that the girl was not sired by Sibanda.
Sibanda on Monday said he was not impressed by the court’s stance of maintaining that the couple were on separation yet they were still married and living together in South Africa.
This was after Dzira told him that his insistence on the two being married did not lessen the charge of kidnapping and assault.
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“Yes, I understand, but it’s not being fair. I am opposed to that because I went to collect the child after I got the number of the grandmother from her (Donga) and I talked to her (grandmother) so that we could meet and she complied,” Sibanda said.
“I believe that the law or court is not being fair when I am married and it says that does not help me in this case.”
Dzira then told him that if he believed that the child was his he should have gathered facts and taken the matter to the courts to seek custody of the child instead of trying to snatch her.
“You were not supposed to take the law into your hands,” Dzira said.
“I understand, but my wife was cheating on me and telling me that the child was with her sister yet I had information that the child was living with her maternal grandmother,” Sibanda said.
“Yes, it’s true, but you were supposed to bring that evidence to court before committing this offence,” Dzira said.
Sibanda said his wife had told him that the child lived with her sister only for him to discover that she actually lived with her maternal grandmother when he attempted to take her.
When the prosecutor Tinashe Dzipe asked if that meant he did not know where the child was, Sibanda said he and his wife were living with the child in South Africa until they returned her to Zimbabwe in 2012.
Sibanda admitted taking the child from her grandmother, but denied assaulting her in the process. He called his sister Sikhanyiso Dube who told the court that her brother and Donga were still married.
Another defence witness Nkosiyenzelwa Dube said the two were still living together and they had visited him at his Makokoba home sometime in December 2013 together with the child in dispute.
Dzira remanded the case to July 14 for judgment.
