Jailed lawyer to appeal against judgement

Harare(ZimEye)- The government lawyer jailed for bribery recently is to appealing against both the conviction and sentence.

Rangarirai Zvauya, a former law officer in the Attorney-General’s office was found guilty of trying to elicit a bribe from Harare businessman and Zanu PF activist Christopher Mutsvangwa, who is on the final list for candidates for the Zimbabwe Media Commission.

However, a family source who does not wish to be named told ZimEye that Zvauya’s lawyers, Mutezo and Partners would be filing an appeal on the grounds that the former government legal counsel had been framed by characters linked to Mutsvangwa.

Before he was accused of eliciting a bribe from Mutsvangwa, Zvauya had stumbled on serious evidence of the former ambassador’s involvement in illegal diamond dealing, as a result of which three people had been killed by the police during interrogation after a deal went wrong.

Zvauya had been tasked with defending Commissioner of Police Augustine Chihuri and the co-ministers of Home affairs, who were facing a law suit from the widow of a man allegedly shot to death by detectives.

The woman, Saliwe Nduna, alleges that her husband, Costa Matete was killed by police officers acting on the orders of Mutsvangwa, with whom Matete had conflicted over payment for diamonds delivered to the former diplomat. Matete and others are then said to have taken goods from Mutsvangwa’s Highlands home, after which they were arrested for robbery before they were tortured to death.

It was during investigations into the circustances leading to the death of Matete and two others that Zvauya became the subject of investigation, accused of soliciting a bribe from Mutsvangwa.

Zvauya, however, contends that he was framed.

Source: ZimEye

Published here: 8 February 2010