YET ANOTHER DARK DAY IN COURT: Jonathan Moyo on Sikhala conviction

 Job Sikhala – the Zengeza West Member of Parliament who has been in jail without bail since June 2022 in unprecedented pre-trial detention – has been convicted by Harare Magistrate Marehwanazvo of obstructing or defeating the course of justice; for allegedly misleading or misdirecting @PoliceZimbabwe  after he was alleged to have recorded a video in which he allegedly said the late Moreblessing Ali, his client, was murdered by ZanuPF.

Magistrate Marehwanazvo said: “the Court is satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that Sikhala was the one who recorded and uploaded the video”. And determined that: “Sikhala was aware that Police were investigating the murder case but he went ahead to make utterances that misled the Police investigations”.

With arguments in mitigation continuing this afternoon at the Harare Magistrates Court ahead of Sikhala’s sentencing, it boggles not only the mind but also any natural sense of justice to comprehend just how any criminal investigations by any professional police force or service can be “misled” or “misdirected” by the utterances of a lawyer of a gruesomely murdered client.

It is yet another dark day in the corridors of Zimbabwe’s battered and beleaguered criminal justice system!

jonathan moyo