A FORMER Judicial Service Commission general hand, who
solemnised a marriage between a local woman and a Nigerian man while posing as
a magistrate, was on Monday sentenced to 12 months imprisonment by a Harare
magistrate.
Edmund Rugare Mboko (61), had his case removed from remand
in 2015 under unclear circumstances.
However, Mboko was then summoned to court four years later
to answer to the same allegations and was convicted and sentenced by Harare
magistrate Takunda Mtetwa.
Mboko will serve a nine-month effective jail term after
magistrate Mtetwa suspended three months on condition of good behaviour.
In 2015, Mboko surprised many people when he solemnised
several marriages between local women and foreign men at the Harare Magistrates
Court.
Mostly targeted were men from the Democratic Republic of
Congo and Nigeria, who were seeking illegal Zimbabwean citizenship.
The court heard that on March 1, 2006 Karen Kokore and her
husband Egomole Callistue Okechukwe went to the Harare Magistrates’ Courts, to
get married to enable Okechukwu, a Nigerian national, to enjoy citizenship
privileges in Zimbabwe.
Mboko, not being a marriage officer, posed as magistrate
Olivia Mariga and solemnised the marriage between Kokore and Okechukwe and
issued the couple with a marriage certificate number 594/006.
The convict then forged the signature of magistrate Mariga
knowing that he was not Mariga.
The offence was discovered on December 15, 2014 by Kakore
when she wanted to file a divorce application and was advised that their
marriage certificate was not captured in the Register general’s data base
leading to his arrest. Newsday
0 comments:
Post a Comment