{"id":5116,"date":"2024-10-16T09:06:45","date_gmt":"2024-10-16T09:06:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zimgbcnews.co.zw\/?p=5116"},"modified":"2024-10-16T09:06:52","modified_gmt":"2024-10-16T09:06:52","slug":"jailed-businessmen-chimombe-and-mpofu-seek-constitutional-court-referral","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/zimgbcnews.co.zw\/?p=5116","title":{"rendered":"Jailed Businessmen Chimombe and Mpofu Seek Constitutional Court Referral"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><br>Crimes and Courts Correspondent<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Embattled business partners Moses Mpofu and Mike Chimombe have filed an application with the High Court&#8217;s Criminal Division to have their case referred to the Constitutional Court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Through their lawyers, Advocate Tapson Dzvetero and Ashiel Mugiya, they&#8217;ve raised several concerns regarding their arrest, incarceration, and trial proceedings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mpofu and Chimombe have pleaded innocent before High Court Judge Pisirayi Kwenda, but they&#8217;re unhappy with the composition of the court. Specifically, they object to the assessors sitting with Kwenda being above 70 years old. They also take issue with Kwenda&#8217;s decision to allow live-streaming of their trial without consulting them or the State.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to their lawyers, &#8220;Both the current assessors\u2026 are above 70 years of age.&#8221; Moreover, &#8220;One of the Honourable Assessors\u2026 was replaced on the second day without involving the accused or their legal practitioners.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The lawyers question the legitimacy of this replacement, as well as the live-streaming decision made &#8220;in the absence of the accused persons and to the exclusion of the state&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC) has been investigating Mpofu and Chimombe since June 2024, focusing on alleged money laundering and abuse of office related to a contractual dispute with a South African company, REN-form, and the Presidential Goats Scheme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Key Concerns:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Age of Assessors: Mpofu and Chimombe object to assessors being above 70 years old.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Live-Streaming: Kwenda allowed live-streaming without consulting the accused or the State.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Replacement of Assessor: Unilateral replacement of an assessor without notice or consultation.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Lack of Transparency: Unclear who requested live-streaming and why.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>The referral request seeks to address these concerns and ensure a fair trial.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Zim GBC News\u00a92024<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Crimes and Courts Correspondent Embattled business partners Moses Mpofu and Mike Chimombe have filed an application with the High Court&#8217;s Criminal Division to have their case referred to the Constitutional&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5117,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[125],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-crime-and-court"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/zimgbcnews.co.zw\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/zimgbcnews.co.zw\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/zimgbcnews.co.zw\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zimgbcnews.co.zw\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zimgbcnews.co.zw\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5116"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/zimgbcnews.co.zw\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5116\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5118,"href":"http:\/\/zimgbcnews.co.zw\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5116\/revisions\/5118"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zimgbcnews.co.zw\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/zimgbcnews.co.zw\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zimgbcnews.co.zw\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zimgbcnews.co.zw\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}