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Nyore Madzianike Senior Court Reporter 

The trial date for Zimbabwe Miners Federation president Henrietta Rushwaya on charges of attempting to smuggle 6kg of gold out of the country in 2020 should be set next month. 

Mr Lancelot Mutsokoti, prosecuting, told the court that they were expecting to furnish Rushwaya with a trial date when she returns to court on November 10. 

Rushwaya appeared in court with Steven Tserai and Gift Karanda, who are facing charges related to the gold smuggling incident. 

“We are waiting for the outcome of the extra-territorial investigations which are being conducted and we hope to furnish the accused with a trial date on their next remand date,” said Mr Mutsokoti. 

Rushwaya, Tserai and Karanda, through their lawyers Mr Tapson Dzvetero and Peter Patisani, notified the State that they will apply for refusal of further remand in the event that the trial date is not set at the next remand hearing. 

Rushwaya was recently acquitted of bribing officials at Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport to allow her to travel out of the country with the gold. 

She was cleared of the bribery charges by Harare regional magistrate Mrs Learnmore Mapiye who said in her judgment that the State’s evidence, through its witnesses, left many doubts on how she could have committed the offence. 

Mrs Mapiye said the two witnesses who testified during the trial, including the chief witness Owen Sibanda, failed to corroborate in their testimonies leaving the court in doubt. 

She said the star witness, Sibanda, denied in court that he was offered a bribe saying he thought Rushwaya was joking when she mentioned money, leaving the court puzzled as to why he decided to take it as serious two years later. 

Mrs Mapiye said that the court also noted that there were three witness statements that were recorded and the court was left wondering why Rushwaya was handed an unsigned statement for preparation of the trial.

She said the unanswered questions dealt a big blow to the State’s case and also made it difficult for the court to be convinced that Rushwaya could have offered bribes to the airport officials. 

Rushwaya, who was represented by lawyer Mr Peter Patisani, had denied the charges saying her prosecution was malicious and aimed at soiling her good name. 

She told the court that she never offered any bribe to anyone since she had no intention to smuggle the gold in question. 

She has consistently said she was not attempting to carry or smuggle gold out of the country and was just carrying a wrong bag to Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport. She told the court she was a gold buying agent for Fidelity Printers and Refiners and that she held a gold buying licence.