Kwekwe MP acquitted

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ZANU PF Kwekwe Central MP Masango Matambanzo and his bodyguard, Beden Mawire, who were facing charges of assaulting Gokwe Kana MP Owen Ncube, are now free men after the court acquitted them at the close of their trial.

ZANU PF Kwekwe Central MP Masango Matambanzo and his bodyguard, Beden Mawire, who were facing charges of assaulting Gokwe Kana MP Owen Ncube, are now free men after the court acquitted them at the close of their trial.

BLESSED MHLANGA Staff Reporter

Provincial magistrate Letwin Rwodzi ruled that evidence led during the trial was too inconsistent to warrant a conviction.

She said the court could not rule out that the charges against Matambanadzo and Mawire were made to destroy the MP’s political career, as he alleged in his defence.

Matambanadzo, through his lawyer Liberty Mashanyare, had told the court that Ncube engineered the charges in an effort to get him convicted so that he could lose his parliamentary seat.

Rwodzi said Ncube’s evidence was materially contradicted by three other witnesses who each gave a different version of the events.

“The complaint (Ncube) told the court that when he was punched by both accused persons, his head did not even move an inch, yet another witness told this court that he was grabbed by the collar while being punched,” the magistrate noted.

“The evidence was so inconsistent that the court does not know which version to believe.”

The magistrate noted that Ncube had told the court that Unique Chiduza was sitting in the car next to him when he was assaulted, but in giving his own version, Chiduza said he only got into the car after the assault.

The State had accused the Zanu PF MP and his bodyguard of punching Ncube on the face on July 13 last year at Amaveni shopping centre.

Matambanadzo is, however, not completely off the hook, as he still faces another assault charge.

He stands accused, together with Mawire, of assaulting Marco Msipha, a charge he denies and has called it a fabrication by political enemies.