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Prosper Dembedza-Court Correspondent

THE trial of a legal clerk with Tendai Biti Law Chambers, who is facing two fresh counts of fraud, failed to kick off yesterday after his lawyer failed to turn up.

On the last sitting, the trial was postponed after the clerk, Constantine Chaza, told the court that he needed specific documents to prepare his defence.

Harare magistrate Mrs Munashe Chibanda deferred the matter to April 29 for trial commencement.

On the first count, it is alleged that on February 26, 2020 at the High Court in Harare, Chaza tendered a fake special power of attorney from Eliot Rogers in the matter in which the complainant, Tendai Mashamhanda, was the other part. The court acted upon the misrepresentation and allowed Chaza to file the papers.

The matter came to light when Mashamhanda managed to contact Rogers in the United Kingdom who denied giving Chaza any power of attorney and the matter was reported to the police.

The special power of attorney tendered by Chaza was checked out by the CID Forensic Laboratory for analysis together with other documents that Eliot Rogers signed and it was allegedly discovered that the documents were not signed by the same person.

On the second count, it is alleged that on October 18, 2021 at the High Court in Harare, Chaza again allegedly tendered a fake special power of attorney from Rogers in another case.

It is alleged that the matter came to light when the complainant, Piwayi Chiutsi, noted that the signature on the special power of attorney dated September 27 2015 was different from the signature by Rogers on an affidavit done on October 7 2014 and a report was made to the police,

Investigations revealed that the two signatures were not authored by the same person. Chaza is on $5 000 bail on another matter involving perjury charges after allegedly filing a false statement under oath at the High Court.