MDC Alliance vice president Tendai Biti, accused of verbally assaulting a Russian lady, has filed two court applications before a Harare magistrate.
Biti is accusing the magistrate Vongai Muchuchuti Guvuriro
of colluding with state to violate his rights.
The prominent Harare lawyer abandoned his application for
referral to Constitutional Court midway and filed another application for
recusal of the magistrate.
He said the magistrate had ruled against him saying he is
now unrepresented in court despite a letter by his legal practitioner Alec
Muchadehama’s engagement at the High Court.
The State represented by Tafara Chirambira did not respond
to that application and elected to respond after taking instructions from the
complainant. The matter was remanded to Thursday.
The State had accused Biti of delaying proceedings hoping
Aleshina would give up.
Prosecutor Michael Reza alleged Biti sought more than seven
postponements since his initial remand in December 2020 and the matter had not
moved to trial despite several remands.
Reza also told the court ‘Biti is now playing with the
court because he applies for postponement almost every time he appears in
court.’
The prosecutor said they had failed to complete a simple
case of assault for a period of close to a year, making it a record in
Zimbabwean courts.
Biti has since last week submitted his testimony and Reza
said it was not desirable for the accused person to stand on the witness stand
for long.
The State claimed Biti applied for referral of his application
to the Constitutional Court but had dumped that application in the middle of
submissions. He was now filing another application for recusal of the
magistrate.
Reza said this could only be a delaying tactic to stall the
trial. Newsday
0 comments:
Post a Comment