Joseph Chinotimba gets thorough beating from ZUPCO driver

By Staff Writer
07 November 2005

Joseph Chinotimba is an ordinary person after all. The self-styled commander-in-chief of farm invasions ‘cried like a baby’ after an enraged ZUPCO bus driver gave him a thorough beating.

The Zimbabwe Standard reported that Chinotimba recently received the shock of his life when the bus driver, Victor Machiwere, beat him up at the company's Harare branch.

Chinotimba, a director of Edlan Security - a company contracted to provide security at ZUPCO properties - was supervising his guards when he discovered that the driver was in possession of maize he had brought from a rural trip.

Speaking to The Standard Machiwerere said Chinotimba accused him of stealing maize and wanted to confiscate it. He said the situation degenerated after Chinotimba started to slap him in the face.

"When he slapped me, I got angry and head-butted him on the forehead and on the mouth. That is when he started screaming for his bodyguards to come to his aid. I then picked up a fan-belt from a bus and started whipping him with it. Akaita zvekuzhamba kungemhuka pandakatanga kumuruka nefan-belt. (He started screaming like an animal when I started thrashing him).

He was bleeding from the mouth and begging for forgiveness when his body-guards finally arrived, some of the guards wanted to handcuff me but were stopped by my colleagues," Machiwerere said.

He said when he walloped Chinotimba he had not recognised him and thought he was beating up a thug who had sneaked into the company's premises.

"From the way he was behaving, I assumed he was one of those common thieves pretending to be some senior official," said the driver who reportedly gained the admiration of colleagues after mauling the bearded Chinotimba.