CCC activists Joana Mamombe and Cecilia Chimbiri lost their bid to block the State from tendering documentary evidence that their phones were active in Harare during the time they claimed to have been abducted while a police witness on duty at the roadblock where they claimed to have been arrested said there were no arrests at all.
The two opposition activists are charged with communicating
falsehoods prejudicial to the State after they allegedly faked their
abductions.
Chief Magistrate Mrs Faith Mushure overruled the objection
of Mamombe and Chimbiri allowing the State to tender documentary exhibits.
The defence lawyers failed to show that the phone records
of the numbers owned by the two were not relevant for the State’s case.
Mrs Mushure then allowed the State to tender the documents
that comprise call data records obtained from Econet and the base stations in
Warren Park and Belvedere.
Prosecutor Mr Michael Reza wanted to tender the documents
saying they would assist in showing that the SIM cards believed to be owned by
the two opposition activists never left Harare on the day in question.
A police officer and State witness, Venenzia Muchenje, who
was manning the roadblock near Exhibition Park from 2pm at the place Mamombe
and Chimbiri claimed to have been arrested while on their way into the city
centre from Warren Park, told the court that no one was arrested at all from
2pm when they assumed duty.
Ms Muchenje told the court that she never saw a Mercedes
Benz with women on-board during the time she assumed duty at the roadblock at
around 2pm. A man approached them about a few minutes after they went on duty
asking whether they had arrested anyone and they told him they had not.
On the phone records, Engineer Christopher Tapera Kazembe
told the court, during cross-examination by the duo’s lawyer Mr Alec
Muchadehama, that the records only showed the numbers and under which base
stations they were active, not the
owners of numbers.
The records could only show where the phones were and could
not show one way or the other what was happening around the base stations
including whether the two were arrested at the roadblock, taken to police
station, transferred to another vehicle driven by police, leaving all their
belongings, including their vehicle and were driven to Muchapondwa Shopping
Centre where they claimed to have been tortured before being dumped.
Asked to comment on whether there was a possibility that
the police broke the passwords of the phones, Eng Kazembe said: “It is possible
that one can broke the passwords but I am not confirming that the police broke
into the cellphones.”
The matter continues today with police officer Muchenje
testifying. Herald
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