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Mrs Joyce Mutedza flanked by her daughter Nokuthula and son Ngonidzashe at Home in Ashdown Park in Harare yesterday.-(Picture by Shelton Muchena)

Fidelis Munyoro Chief Court Reporter—

Two fairly old female relatives firmly held Joice Mutedza five years ago as she wept uncontrollably at the graveside of her slain husband, almost falling into the grave with the casket being lowered six feet under the earth at their rural home in Mt Darwin.Inside the coffin was Inspector Petros Mutedza, who was killed while on duty in Glen View 3 by some MDC-T thugs.

Looking at her wailing, you could discern that it was not only because she had lost a partner, but most importantly, she had lost a companion and primary source of sustenance.

Five years after the death of her husband, Mrs Mutedza paints a picture of a lost soul, struggling to make ends meet.

The late Insp Mutedza was stoned to death in the line of duty at Glen View 3 Shopping Centre on May 28 2011, while he and his team were trying to disperse the opposition political party youths, who had gathered for an unsanctioned rally. This week, Mrs Mutedza spoke of her relief after three MDC-T activists — Tungamirai Madzokere, Yvonne Musarurwa and Last Maengahama — who were part of the opposition political party marauding youths that killed her husband, were condemned to a combined 60 years imprisonment.

They were all found unanimously guilty of murdering their victim with actual intention on grounds of a doctrine of common purpose, earning a mandatory minimum 20 years each.

The court found no extenuating circumstances.

Mrs Mutedza said the punishment meted on the three was not enough to heal the situation.

“I am still shocked and troubled with the death of my husband,” said Mrs Mutedza.

“I can take solace in the fact that justice has prevailed at last, but I strongly feel that they deserved the maximum penalty of death, because they killed my husband.”

Mrs Joyce Mutedza at Home in Ashdown Park in Harare yesterday.-(Picture by Shelton Muchena)

She went on: “Law is law, I have nothing that I can say. It is at least better to have them jailed than to go scot-free.

“My husband died a cruel death and now we are suffering. Its law, but it’s painful.”

Insp Mutedza stood a gentleman among men.

Even the Supreme Court judge Justice Chinembiri Bhunu acknowledged, before sentencing Madzokere, Musarurwa and Maengahama to jail that Insp Mutedza was a cop among policemen.

“He was a gentle giant, a fine gentleman par excellence,” remarked Justice Bhunu, dismissing the defence assertion that police have a tendency of provoking the public.

On the fateful day, when Insp Mutedza ordered the MDC-T activists to disperse at the Glen View 4 Shopping Centre earlier that day, they requested and he allowed them to finish braaing their meat before dispersing.

At Glen View 3 Shopping Centre, Insp Mutedza and his team though armed with lethal riot police gear, did not attack or order his men to attack anyone.

“In the face of uncompromising resistance and an attack on his person, he chose to flee rather than use his massive built and riot gear to attack anyone,” noted Justice Bhunu.

“He was therefore an exceptional man not given to abusing his power and authority even in the face of danger to himself and his men.

He did not attack anyone because he respected the sanctity of human life and yet the marauding group of MDC-T youths comprising the three accused persons and others did not respect his life at all.”

In this regard, the judge did not buy the defence submission that Insp Mutedza and his team invited the attack on themselves through misbehaviour.

“I accordingly find as a fact proved beyond question that the deceased and his team did not misbehave in any away warranting the barbaric attack on the police,” added Justice Bhunu.

The judge also noted that the MDC-T trio’s complicity in the commission of the despicable heinous crime amounted to an aggravating circumstance warranting the imposition of mandatory sentence.

Justice Bhunu said the position, however, could have been different if Insp Mutedza had been killed off duty, on a frolic of his own.

“The court will be failing in its duty to protect law enforcement agents and society at large if it were to impose a lenient sentence,” he said.

“Those who promote and perpetrate offences of this nature must take heed and beware that they risk a date with the hang man.”

The defence had urged the court to be lenient with the three on the basis that the doctrine of common purpose upon which they were convicted was no longer part of our law following the enactment of the new Constitution.

But Justice Bhunu found nothing in the Constitution which impugned or abrogated the doctrine of common purpose.

He ruled that the defence bid to have the doctrine of common purpose not be considered in assessing appropriate sentence because it was a Rhodesian legal tool to oppress blacks was cheap politicking and grossly illogical.

“One does not discard good law simply because it was at one time in history abused by anyone,” said Justice Bhunu.

“The common purpose doctrine is a good law of universal application, which started in the Garden of Eden.

“Those who are of a Christian disposition will remember and appreciate that the serpent did not eat the forbidden fruit and yet God himself punished it severely for influencing Adam and Eve to eat the forbidden fruit.”

In this regard, the judge said no benefit could be derived from the rather misleading defence submission that the common purpose doctrine was no longer part of our law.