Justice Garainesu Mawadze sitting with assessors Mavis
Chademana and Graeme Nish convicted Adonia Moyo (28) of Chimombe village, Chief
Chavarika, Zaka, and Elias Chimbuya (26) of 6043 Victoria Ranch, Masvingo of
murder with actual intent.
Moyo and Chimbuya, who pleaded not guilty to the crime, but
were convicted after a full trial, also stole two smart phones from their
victim.
Allegations were that the two murdered 35-year-old Tafadzwa
Chiumba on July 15 last year outside Mombasa Dunira Mall in Victoria Ranch, by
crushing his head with 17 pieces of cement bricks until his brains were
exposed, and stabbing him several times all over his body including on the neck
and chest.
In passing sentence, Justice Mawadze said the brutality of
the attack on Chiumba was nerve wrecking as shown by the pictures of the murder
scene that the police submitted to the court.
He said the court had searched high and low to try and
figure out what had driven the two men to commit such a heinous crime and to
find an appropriate sentence.
“I will grudgingly stay the death penalty,” he said.
“The inhuman conduct is unbelievable, even animals
slaughtered for meat are not killed in such a manner. The deceased had not
committed any crime. The least he had done was to buy dagga from you and paid
you for it. If he had wronged you, the least you should have done was to slap
him or flee from him as you claimed.”
Justice Mawadze said Chiumba died a painful death and the
lack of contrition on the part of Moyo and Chimbuya was shocking, and made it
difficult for the court to even consider that they could have been drunk from a
combination of alcohol and dagga.
The judge called on the authorities to seriously look into
the issue of drug abuse considering that such heinous crimes were being
committed by young people.
Chiumba sold snooker tokens at the bar and had left home
going to work in the afternoon but was never to return, after being attacked by
Moyo who worked at the complex as a cook, while his friend, Chimbuya sold
mbanje at the business centre.
Trouble started after Chiumba bought a US$0,50 twist of
mbanje from Chimbuya and paid with a US$5 note.
Chimbuya and Moyo then refused to give him his US$4,50
change, resulting in a misunderstanding as Chiumba demanded his change. Moyo
and Chimbuya then attacked Chiumba by the gate to the complex before dragging
him to a nearby field where they hit him with 17 pieces of cement bricks
leaving him for dead.
The two friends later decided to go back and finish off
Chiumba with Moyo providing the 15cm knife with which Chimbuya used to cut him
on the throat and stab him on the chest.
They then stole his two smart phone handsets. Chiumba’s
body was discovered the following morning and police were called. Following
investigations, the police arrested Moyo and recovered one of Chiumba’s smart
phones, Buddie line and some blood stained clothes.
Moyo then implicated Chimbuya and he was also arrested.
In their defence, Moyo and Chimbuya agreed to most of the
facts as presented by the State that was represented by Edwin Mbavarira, but
said they did not know how Chiumba later died as they had left him outside the
Mombasa Dunira complex and ran away.
Moyo and Chimbuya were represented by Calisto Mutema of
Revengo and Maboke Legal Practitioners, who struggled to even find what to say
in mitigation and extenuation other than that the two were young men who had
realised the folly of their violent action.
Mutema asked that the court consider a sentence of between
15 and 20 years, prompting one of the assessors to question how he could come
up with such a suggestion.
In aggravation, Mbavarira said the death sentence would
have been more appropriate had it was not been for the debate around the
penalty, with many pushing for its abolition from the country’s statutes.
He then suggested the life sentence which the court
eventually agreed to. – New Ziana.
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