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accused of killing a policeman in Glen View for coaching witnesses.

Justice Chinembiri Bhunu said the evidence of the late Inspector Petros Mutedza’s brother Tichaona strongly suggested that he was coached and influenced by the defence team.
Tichaona told the court that his brother’s body was tampered with and accused Zanu-PF of having killed him.

Insp Mutedza’s father Solomon also gave similar evidence.
The 29 activists’ defence team from the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights had approached the court for the second time seeking bail, arguing that Tichaona proffered fresh evi­dence.

However, Justice Bhunu dismissed the bail application and advised the lawyers to approach the Supreme Court as previously advised.

“That type of conduct, if true, is unethical and unbecoming of a firm of lawyers which touts itself as a firm for human rights,” he said.
“It is clear that Tichaona is a bitter man who has a bone to chew with his rival party, Zanu-PF.
“His attempt to link the party to the murder of his brother by concocting a fictitious story not worthy of belief must be viewed in that light.

“His father Solomon struck me as a gullible old man who had no choice but to follow blindly the lead of his son and lawyers.”
Justice Bhunu said it was clear that Insp Mutedza’s brother and father were not only giving evidence but were delivering judgment on behalf of the court as to the guiltiness or other­wise of the accused and their entitle­ment to bail.
“To that extent, they were clearly attempting to usurp the functions of this court,” he said.
“In this case, the witnesses’ opinion is based purely on hearsay, wild specu­lation and conjecture and is totally mis­leading.”

Justice Bhunu said the defence team was “pushing the wrong end of the stick” and should approach the Supreme Court as he had already ruled that there were no special cir­cumstances in the case.

He said the plight of the MDC-T activists was, to a large extent, being worsened by frequent futile applica­tions, raising issues which should be in the domain of the Supreme Court.

“It is now more than two months since I granted the applicants leave to appeal to the Supreme Court,” said Jus­tice Bhunu.
“I trust that had they been pursuing the appeal with the same zeal as the applications in this court, the issue of bail would have been long put to rest by
the Supreme Court.

“The court has now lost two weeks of time which should have been put to better use. While such applications may provide sensational media pub­licity, they are of no benefit at all to the accused persons save to provide fur­ther prejudice arising from resultant delay.”
Justice Bhunu said considering that the Supreme Court was the court of last resort, it appeared that it was best suited to deal with the contested bail issues once and for all.

He said there was need to bring the bail application to finality so that the trial could flow smoothly without interruption from endless applica­tions, appeals and counter appeals.
Justice Bhunu said although the 29 activists spent more than 16 months in prison, the question arising was whether the delay in bringing the trial to finality was outrageous to amount to an extraordinary occurrence amounting to a special circumstance.

He said the murder case was com­plex as it involved 29 people and would naturally take more time to investigate and bring the trial to final­ity.
Justice Bhunu said he had “taken an unprecedented step” to stop taking any new cases to devote his time to the case.
He said as the head of the criminal division, he was aware of the prevail­ing circum­stances and it was not unusual for prisoners facing a serious charge involving murder to spend more than two years before being brought to trial.

Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s wife Elizabeth attended the court ses­sion.
The trial continues today.

Meanwhile, police have arrested two more MDC-T activists in connec­tion with Insp Mutedza’s murder.
The two are Jackson Mabota, the party’s youth assembly deputy chair­person for Glen View South and Tarisai Kusotera.
This brings to 31 the number of suspects arrested over the case.

Police spokesperson Assistant Commissioner Charity Charamba confirmed the arrests, saying the two had been on the run for a long time.
They are expected to appear in court soon.

Insp Mutedza, who was stationed at Borrowdale Police Station and attached to the Reaction Group, was allegedly murdered by the activists on May 29 last year.
He had gone with a colleague to investigate an illegal meeting the activists were hold­ing at Glen View 3 Shopping Centre.