Mbanje granny’s relatives threaten news crew

By Leonard Ncube

BULAWAYO – Daring relatives of a 70-year-old suspected drug-dealing granny from Bulawayo’s Gwabalanda suburb who was arrested after being found with nearly 70kg of mbanje yesterday threatened a news crew with unspecified action for covering the story.

Three women and a man, who accompanied the accused Josephine Sithole around Tredgold Building to pay bail, confronted the Chronicle news crew.

The man, whose details could not be established but spoke in an injiva tone, attempted to manhandle the crew in the corridor and threatened to “deal” with it if it took a picture of Sithole.

It looked like the man was a son to the suspected drug-pushing granny, who was dressed in a light blue jacket, a brown duke and wrapped herself in a brownish cloth.

“Akula picture ethathwayo lapha. Akuvunyelwa, kutsho mina. Liyithathe leyo picture lizangibona. If you want, take mine and you will see. (Don’t take a picture or else I will deal with you),” the man charged.

Sithole, who is being co-accused with Ian Ncube, 47, also from Gwabalanda, at that time had been led by prison officers to the cells so that she could be cleared after paying her bail.

In a desperate move to protect her, the relatives waited by the entrance leading to the cells blocking the camera. They blocked her off the camera on their way out through an adjoining exit door.

Sithole and Ncube were granted $150 bail each with stringent conditions. They will be back in court on January 14.

Each of them has to report thrice a week on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) Drugs and Narcotics, to reside at their given addresses in Gwabalanda and not to interfere with witnesses.

Admitting the duo to bail, magistrate, Tawanda Muchemwa said there were no grounds that they could abscond trial.

Prosecutor Carrington Dhliwayo was not opposed to bail, saying the accused persons were of fixed abode.

Sithole and Ncube admitted to the charges of possessing mbanje weighing 64,6 kg and worth about $64,600 but told the court the drugs were not theirs.

“The bags do not belong to me. I was given to keep them but I didn’t know that there was mbanje inside,” Sithole told the magistrate.

Ncube also told the court that he left the bags with Sithole for safekeeping when he went to his rural home in Esigodini.

Dhliwayo said police monitored Sithole’s house from about 3am until 10am on New Year’s Eve and searched the house at about 10.30am upon which five bags of the illicit drug were recovered in an ensuite toilet.

Police had sniffer dogs during the search.

Members of the public had tipped detectives that Sithole was dealing in mbanje. It is said Sithole then implicated Ncube who he said had left the bags for safekeeping at her house. Detectives phoned Ncube on his mobile phone and he handed himself leading to his arrest. The Chronicle