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Mr Komichi

Senior Court Reporter
The trial of MDC–T chief elections agent Morgan Komichi, who is facing charges of fraud and contravening the Electoral Act, has been postponed to next Monday.Mr Michael Mugabe of the Attorney-General’s Office applied on Wednesday to have the matter deferred to next week on the basis that the court was overwhelmed with other cases.

“Your worship today the court is overwhelmed. There are various partly heard matters therefore it is unlikely that this matter will proceed today,” he said.

“We pray that the matter be postponed to another date when the court will be free to entertain it. The State is proposing September 16 for continuation of this trial.”

Komichi’s lawyer Mr Alec Muchadehama opposed the application, arguing that the court should give priority to the matter considering that his client was in custody.

Magistrate Mr Tendai Mahwe agreed with the State and deferred the matter to September 16. Komichi was arrested on July 28 on allegations of misrepresenting to Zec that he had “picked up” from a dust bin, a sealed tamper-proof envelope with a special vote ballot paper at the Harare International Conference Centre.

Komichi allegedly approached Zec deputy director of public relations Mr Tendai Pamire and told him that an unnamed person informed him that they had picked an envelope from a dustbin at the HICC where the special vote was being processed.

He further alleged that he had opened it out of curiosity and discovered that there were ballot papers cast by the police in favour of MDC-T by Constable Mugove Chiginya.  The commission reported the matter to the police and investigations showed that Cst Chiginya had failed to vote in the special voting exercise as his name had not been called out by the presiding officer.