KADOMA – Five members of President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu PF party who connived and kidnapped two nine-year-old twins with the intention of killing them for ritual purposes ahead of the elections this year have been jailed.
Two of the officials, Chipo Muradi (54) and Dominic Musapurwa (56), both lost to MDC-T candidates in the local council elections. Both were convicted of two counts of kidnapping together with Zanu PF Waverly district chairperson Odrina Gwengwe (51), Kaise Ncube (69) and Joyce Watyoka (50).
Gwengwe and Muradi were each slapped with a 12-month prison term before the courts suspended half of the sentence on condition of good behaviour. Watyoka and Ncube were each slapped with a 10-month prison term, but will serve four months after six were suspended.
The magistrate Richard Ramaboe said he had varied the sentences to take into account the role they all played in the kidnapping of the two little girls. The ringleader of the whole deal, Musapurwa, will serve nine months of his 15-month jail term.
“While there is no scientific evidence to indicate that the two (girls) suffered any emotional trauma as a result of the kidnapping and subsequent rituals, it is clear that their lives will never be the same again and that the experience shook them,” the magistrate said before passing sentence.
