Momberume (26), who works at a farm in Kwekwe, is also
being charged with being intimate or performing indecent acts with a young
person.
Yesterday, police detectives picked the deceased’s father,
Edmore Machaya (45) and his wife Ratchel Mabika (36) at Garibold Farm in Kwekwe
amid indications they had lied about the girl’s date of birth.
They were taken to court where they were denied bail. Mabika
stands accused of misleading the police by submitting her name as Shy Mabika
when her real name is Ratchel.
Momberume was not asked to plead to murder and having
sexual intercourse with a minor when he appeared before Mutare regional
magistrate Mrs Lucy-Anne Mungwari. Mrs Mungwari remanded him in custody to
September 3.
Messrs Tirivanhu Mutyasira and Jonathan Chingwinyiso
appeared for the State, while Mr Brian Majamanda of Khupe and Chijara Law
Chambers represented Momberume. Mr Majamanda told the court that he would apply
for bail in due course.
However, bail applications in respect of murder cases are
dealt with by the High Court, which has jurisdiction over such third schedule
offences.
It is the State’s case that Momberume caused the death of
the girl by impregnating her and failing to take her to a proper health
institution to receive healthcare services.
“Instead, the accused person took Annah Machaya to Johanne
Marange traditional midwives where she delivered and died after some labour
complications.
“He thereafter secretly buried her without notifying the
authorities of her death,” reads part of the court papers.
To cover up for the offence, it is alleged that there was
misrepresentation that the deceased was Memory Machaya aged 22.
On the other count, Momberume is said to have impregnated
Annah (15) and stayed with her as his wife. She then fell pregnant and died on
July 15 while giving birth to a baby boy at a shrine in Marange, Manicaland.
Annah’s parents were picked up in Kwekwe and taken to court
for defeating the course of justice by furnishing investigators with false
information.
The couple Edmore Machaya and Ratchel Mbika were remanded
in custody to 9 September after their bail request was shot down.
Kwekwe prosecutor Ms Michelle Daraja told the court that
the two gave false information to the police following the death of their child
Anna Machaya on 15 July 2021.
Police from Homicide section in Harare were tasked to
investigate circumstances surrounding the death of the girl, the court heard
It is the State’s case that on 9 August 2021 the two, who
are biological parents to the deceased, were approached by detectives
investigating the death.
The couple allegedly
misrepresented to the police that the girl who had died was Memory Machaya born
on January 2, 1999.
They allegedly furnished the police with a national
registration certificate of the said Memory Machaya which they knew belonged to
another person who is alive. Police investigations later established that the
deceased was in fact, Annah Machaya born in July 2006. Herald
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