Former MDC-T legislator for Masvingo Urban and ex-deputy Youth minister, Tongai Matutu was yesterday detained for about five hours over his conviction for assaulting Chief Serima, Vengesai Rushwaya, in 2010.
Tatenda Chitagu
Own Correspondent
Matutu, who has now defected to the MDC-Renewal team, was found guilty of the offence and fined $100 or spending 25 days in prison.
He paid the fine, but appealed against both sentence and conviction.
But in a surprising turn of events, detectives from Masvingo Central Police Station, armed with a warrant of arrest, picked him at his offices in town and detained him for more than five hours before releasing him.
The reasons for the arrest, according to Matutu’s lawyer Martin Mureri were that his appeal was dismissed. The same reason is also stated on the warrant of arrest that “Appellant failed to comply with rule 22 (2) and his appeal was dismissed”.
But Mureri said the magistrate Oliver Mudzongachiso, who presided over the matter, erred at law.
“We did not do a follow-up to the appeal,” he said.
“We appealed in principle, but then the magistrate was not supposed to issue a warrant for his arrest since he had paid the fine.
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“The magistrate erred here because there was no way we were going to appeal without paying the fine, otherwise he would have been locked up if he had not paid.”
He also produced a receipt of payment of the fine dated December 9 2010.
