The five companies received US$32 million to supply certain
goods and material to police.
Chihuri is challenging the validity of unexplained wealth
orders granted to the State against him and the State is counter applying for
Chihuri to explain how he disposed of five houses under investigations.
The five properties, which include a magnificent mansion in
Gletwyn comprising 16 bedrooms all en-suite, seven lounges, nine garages, a
helipad and fishing dam all sitting on a 12ha of land valued at US$7 million –
were part of the family’s large property portfolio.
The five properties were sold to people with no connection
to Chihuri and both parties legal counsel agreed these purchasers were innocent
of anything wrong.
National Prosecuting Authority’s chief public prosecutor in
charge of the Asset Forfeiture Unit, Mr Chris Mutangadura, told Justice
Pisirayi Kwenda that there was no constitutional matter before the court..
Through his lawyer Mr Addington Chinake, Chihuri had
disagreed saying the unexplained wealth orders had infringed his constitutional
rights because when they were granted he was not given an opportunity to be
heard first.
In his submission Mr Mutangadura said if the court decided
to discharge the orders it must look into the context of how they were granted
by the same court.
He said there was no constitutional case to talk about
because the application for the orders was ex parte and simply asking for an
explanation.
“In those applications we were simply saying that the
applicant (Chihuri) together with his co-applicants were engaged in activities
we regard as unlawful or criminal. Our averments are born out of facts
revolving around the disbursements of public funds to companies related to the
applicants and those funds are quite substantial amounting to US$32 million.”
He again urged the court to read the court applications
that were made for the UWOs and see how the background of the case was ably
stated that Chihuri together with his wife and relatives were required to
explain their wealth.
As this juncture, Mr Chinake objected to Mr Mutangadura
line of submissions saying he could not be allowed give evidence from the bar
because he had no right to do so.
One of the points that Mr Chinake had made was that the
applications for the unexplained wealth orders had never been served on his
clients.
Mr Chinake asked Justice Kwenda to avoid the situation
where the judge and the prosecutor would be privy to the contents of the
application for unexplained wealth orders, while the people affected by the
orders were “being kept outside the house”.
“How can they be guests in a court of law when they are not
given the very documents that formed the granting of this application,” queried
Mr Chinake.
“That is not justice my Lord! There is no court anywhere in
the world wherein the prosecutor and judge share documents and then the defence
is denied. That is not how courts of law operate.”
In his response, Mr Mutangadura said when Chihuri was
served with the unexplained wealth orders, it was within his power to go and
access the record of proceedings at the High Court’s registrar offices.
After hearing the submissions from both parties’ lawyers,
Justice Kwenda reserved judgment to a later date.
The NPA has already been granted orders that freeze company
and property assets, orders now being disputed by Chihuri, and is now seeking
explanation of the sale of the additional properties.
The order, which the NPA obtained at the High Court, placed
known family property in Zimbabwe under the management of the Asset Management
Unit of the NPA.
0 comments:
Post a Comment