Herbert Murerwa

Court Reporter
Twenty-nine Beatrice families accused of occupying a farm owned by former Harare regional magistrate Mr Peter Mufunda, intend to call former Minister of Lands and Resettlement Dr Herbert Murerwa as their defence witness.

They also indicated the intention to call Harare provincial administrator Mr Alfred Tome and a former Chitungwiza district administrator only identified as Mr Dzavanhu in their defence.

The 29 are accused of illegally occupying Subdivision 1 of Breamer Farm in Beatrice.

The prosecutor Mr Edmond Ndambakuwa led another witness Mr Langton Chingwazo who said he was a commander of the war veterans.

Mr Chingwazo told the court that he was part of the group that allocated the accused persons land on farm.

“I was with the District Administrator, Provincial Administrator, three comrades who are Nyuke, Runesu and Gwekwete who was the DCC chairman,” he said.

Asked to comment whether he knew that the 29 had no offer letters and were illegally settled, Mr Chingwazo said he wanted to know who caused their arrest.

“We were allocated the farm (Breamer) by the State. We have some documents to prove it and Arex also pegged the land,” he said

Mr Ndambakuwa objected to the production of the letter (which was claimed to have been written by Dr Murerwa) citing that the author of the document should come and testify.

Mr Chingwazo further argued that each individual has a number from Arex because it pegged the land.

“We then issued the land to the people using our own form of offer letter,” he said.

He also wanted to produce a letter which he claimed was authored by Mr Tome and was stopped by the court.

This led to the 29 to ask the court to allow them time to call their witnesses in their defence case.

Brighton Gumbire who is jointly charged with 28 others appeared before Chitungwiza resident magistrate Mr Donald Ndirowei. They denied contravening Section 3 (2) of the gazetted land (Consequential provisions) Chapter 20:20 “Occupation of land without lawful authority”.

Mr Ndirowei remanded them to November 3 for trial continuation.

Mr Mufunda is now working as a legal advisor at the Ministry of Energy and Power Development.