A BEER-INDUCED brawl in Headlands resulted in the death of a two month old baby who was strapped on her mother’s back after a stone thrown at one of the imbibers missed its target and struck the child.
The incident has landed Cloudius Muchenje at the High Court
where he is appearing before senior Mutare High Court judge, Justice Hlekani
Mwayera facing murder charges as defined in Section 47 (i) (a) or (b) of the
Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act, Chapter 9:23. Senior public
prosecutor, Mr Malvern Musarurwa said Muchenje and the father of the late
child, Talent Chirombo, were drinking beer at the Zvimba homestead in
Chiendambuya when tragedy struck. “The late Anxious Chirombo was aged two
months at the time of his death. On the fateful day, the deceased’s father was
drinking beer with other patrons who included the accused person,” said Mr
Musarurwa.
As the patrons partied, Muchenje slapped Lovemore Gondo on
the face. He accused him of stepping on his foot.
“Chirombo restrained the accused person from further
assaulting Gondo and pushed him out of the hut. The accused person bit Chirombo
on the hand and went on to assault him with fists,” said Mr Musarurwa.
Muchenje picked up stones and threw them at Chirombo. One
of the stones struck Anxious who was strapped on his mother’s back as she was
trying to stop the fight. The baby died instantly.
A post mortem conducted by Dr Tendai Nyafesa revealed that
the baby died due to severe head injuries. Muchenje is, however, denying the
charges.
He is admitting that he had a fight with Chirombo, but says
he did not throw the stones as alleged. Instead, he told the court that it was
Chirombo who was using all sorts of weapons to attack him.
Muchenje says he never saw Anxious’ mother at the beer
binge and says something else might have happened to the baby. The trial continues
0n 18 December. Manica Post
0 comments:
Post a Comment