Glen View activists defence team to apply for dismissal of case

By Tichaona Sibanda
28 February 2013

The defence team representing the MDC-T activists, who are standing trial for the murder of a police officer in May 2011, will apply to the court to throw away the case for lack of evidence.

After almost a year of trial, the state has only one witness left to call to testify; Dr Alveiro Aguero, a Cuban pathologist who carried out the post-mortem on Inspector Petros Mutedza who died following disturbances in Glen View, Harare two years ago. He will give his testimony on the 8th March.

Defence lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa told SW Radio Africa that the Cuban government had demanded to know the name of the translator who will help Dr Aguero in court.

‘Basically the case has been postponed to next week Friday to enable the state to furnish the Cubans with the name and date of the next court date,’ Mtetwa said. The lead defence lawyer has described as a farce the numerous delaying tactics by the state.

After presenting two dozen witnesses, the state case has remained weak after most of the testimonies in court seemed to exonerate the activists. All the state witnesses have testified that they did not see any of 31 MDC-T activists throw stones that fatally injured the cop.

A senior lawyer in Harare told SW Radio Africa that he was sure the first route the defence team will take is to apply to the court to dismiss the charges against the activists at the end of the state case.

He said the state case had so many loopholes and is ‘littered’ with many inconsistencies.

The lawyer explained that having followed the case since it started in 2012, he had not come across a shred of evidence that could be used to convict the accused persons.