THE father of the slain Gweru lawyer, Lucia Duve has made
some demands to the family of the suspected killer boyfriend to mark the
beginning of dialogue between the two families as per African tradition.
Lucy, who was based in Gweru was allegedly brutally
attacked by her boyfriend, Tashinga Musonza in November and in the process
fractured her skull, bruised her ribs among some other injuries leading to her
death. Speaking at his Suburbs home last week in the presence of Justice, Legal
and Parliamentary Affairs Minister, Cde Ziyambi Ziyambi, Permanent Secretary
Mrs Virginia Mabhiza and other ministry officials, Mr Godwin Duve said he had
made his demands to the boyfriend’s family.
Although he could not reveal the list of the demands he
made, he hinted that it was the beginning of a dialogue between the two
families. Mr Duve has been declining any dialogue with the Musonza family since
the death of his daughter.
“The Musonzas made contact via our church several times, we
are Catholic and they asked the priest to come and tell us that they wanted to
come and mourn with us but we declined a few times as it was still fresh, we
were mourning. However, later on with the assistance of our church priests
again we managed to send a request of what we need as a family to start
dialogue and this has been given to them so we are waiting for some feedback
from the Musonzas’,” he said.
Traditional Shona practices allows for an aggrieved family,
in the case of murder, to make demands to the accused family as a way of
creating dialogue that may lead to compensation of the aggrieved parties.
Mr Duve said he and his family were reluctant to engage the
Musonza family initially owing to the demeanour they presented when they
attended a court session; he says they made offensive utterances that irked his
family. Mr Duve was at pains to explain what he understood took place on the
fateful day.
“I believe these people went out on a mission to kill her
and they did. It really touched me a lot such that ndakafunga kuti dai zvake
akamupfuura nepfuti it would have been much better and she would have died a
less painful death but with those injuries, she must have suffered a lot of pain
before she died,” he said, burying his head in his chest.
Mr Duve said he also understood that people involved in her
death went to see Lucy’s corpse at the mortuary.
“After Lucy was killed I understand that they went to the
mortuary to see her body, we are African people, what were they going to do
there? Had they gone to confirm she was really dead or not? What did they want
with my daughter’s body when we were not there as her people,” he questioned.
He added: “Who gave them the permission to see the body
when they have no relation with us? It pained us as a family that they would do
such in our absence.”
Cde July Moyo the Minister of Local Government, Public
Works and National Housing who accompanied Cde Ziyambi also expressed his shock
at the incident.
“We have not heard of such an act in the history of the Air
Force because these are usually a well disciplined lot, I know they take a
strong line on their own when dealing with such cases.
“Please accept the visits from the officials at the Air
Force of Zimbabwe so that they may assist and also help establish the character
of this individual. They are also probably soul searching as it is. It helps in
also identifying other officers who may have personality problems and prevent
incidents like this happening,” he said.
Cde Moyo further said during training of service men they
have special courses on how to handle spouses and people of the opposite sex
because they would have been toughened up and were actually men of steel. He
said it came as a surprise that Musonza allegedly killed his partner in such a
manner despite training on discipline. Mr Duve, however, made a revelation that
his daughter was attacked in the Josiah Tungamirai Air base.
“Tashinga started attacking Lucy at the air base, we hear
his friends tried to stop the attack to no avail to an extent that he took her
out of the base and the attack continued at her house. I am surprised that they
had a fight of serious magnitude which other men failed to stop, how then did
they fail to get intervention from security personnel that man the airbase?
They simply let him leave with her knowing very well he was attacking her and
it is very painful to fathom because she died at the hands of this man,” he
said.
Mrs Mabhiza and Cde Ziyambi, however, promised to have the
matter dealt with in the most transparent manner to ensure justice for Lucy.
Meanwhile, Musonza appeared in court on Tuesday where he was remanded in
custody to 28 January 2019. Sunday News
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