Zimbabwean politician kills wife and self

Zimbabwean politician Justine Chiota has killed his wife and committed suicide at his Morningside home in northern Johannesburg. In 2008, the Zimbabwe Peoples’ Party founding member made headlines in South Africa. This after it emerged he was driving a black VIP vehicle, linked to the South African Presidency.

Gauteng police said Chiota’s estranged wife arrived at his residence in East Road on Tuesday morning. She was at his residence, with police, to serve him a protection order. Police spokesperson Lungelo Dlamini said Chiota opened fire before turning the gun on himself.

In August 2008 it was reported that police in South Africa were “investigating a president of an obscure political party in Zimbabwe, Justine Chiota, after a luxury car linked to the Presidency there was registered under his name.”

The car had been locked in a garage in Sandton for months. The black Mercedes-Benz S600 was found by Craig Bezuidenhout, caretaker of Balgowan Estate. “The former tenant moved out in June and locked the garage with a padlock,” said Bezuidenhout.

The elite estate is in Willowbrook Place Street, near Sandton City shopping centre and a few kilometres from Sandton police station. The vehicle had bullet-proof windows, blue lights that are usually on official vehicles and two licence disks each with a different registration number – one GP GP and the other TZF 610 GP.

It was said that the TZF registration number was fake and that the registered residential address of GP GP links ownership to the Presidency.

Questions from the various media houses reporting the case included a case of suspected stolen property while others suggested that the Zimbabwean government might have arranged with a shady political party, with only one registered official in the person of Justine Chiota, to influence the outcome of the March 29th Poll.

Justine Chiota alongside a former ZANU PF chair, Daniel Shumba, president of United People’s Party of Zimbabwe, filed a chamber application arguing that they were unlawfully denied registration as candidates following the presidential elections.

The party, created in 1994 by its Founder President, Justine Chiota, in 2000 contested for the first time in an election. Eight years later, he made a comeback with surprisingly well financed campaigns on national television as well as radio and the print media. Eye Witness News/Afrik news