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Prosper Dembedza Herald Correspondent

George Katsimberis who is facing fraud charges is in the habit of bullying prosecutors through fabricating falsehoods against them, Deputy Prosecutor-General Mr Michael Reza has said.

He said this in his response to a third application for recusal filed by Katsimberis last week. In his written response, Mr Reza said the defence has made an application for his recusal from prosecuting the case without any references.

“I am opposed to the application. As has become the norm in this case, their applications are made without reference to any known statutory provisions,” said Mr Reza. 

“To their credit, they have referred to a case law, Mupungu v Minister of Justice, which unfortunately is hopelessly irrelevant.” 

He said the cited case law refers to the recusal of a judge or magistrate.

Mr Reza said it was trite that the functions of a judge or a magistrate were different from those of a prosecutor. 

“Their decisions have different effects in a case in court. For example, it is not the prosecutor who will find the accused guilty or not guilty. It is not the judge or magistrate who will put the charge or withdraw the charge to an accused,” he said.

When he wrote the letter dated October 14, 2022, Mr Reza said he was not misleading anyone as the facts speak for themselves, adding that a reading of CRB 241-2/20, would confirm that.

“In that case, the trial magistrate Nduna ESQ concluded that Roy (Nyabvure) cannot be a witness in a case involving the submission of the plans because the plan that was in issue was a fake plan,” he said.

Mr Reza said the accused and his counsel were scrapping the bottom of the barrel, by alleging that he has always been the prosecutor in all cases where Pokugara Properties, Tatiana Aleshina or Kenneth Raydon Sharpe have been involved.

“Both counsel and his client are being melodramatic. They both know that in this current trial, I am only prosecuting because the accused person has bullied off all prosecutors who have handled this case. 

“The matter was initially being jointly prosecuted by Mr E Zinyandu and Ms A. Chogumaira. The accused wrote a long letter of complainant falsely accusing the two prosecutors of impropriety despite the fact that they had done nothing wrong. “They recused themselves because they felt unsafe,” he said.

Mr Reza said Katsimberis was in the habit of routinely bullying off prosecutors by either making entirely false accusations against them or by threatening to cause their arrest or by actually making police reports against them. 

“To date the accused has made police reports against the following prosecutors, Mr T Chirambira, Mr. C. Muchemwa, Mr R Chikosha and Mr Chesa. 

“All of these are prosecutors who have taken part in his prosecution or deposed affidavits against him. He has bullied off to his case the following prosecutor, Mrs T Makiya, Ms. C. Mashingaidze. Mr Zinyandu and Ms A Chogumaira,” he said.

Mr Reza said in his latest application, Katsimberis threatened him saying that he is going to report him to Zacc, but he didn’t indicate what charges he was going to prefer.

He also said he had never in his life spoken with Mr Sharpe.