Machete robber jailed for 56 years
By Bernard Chiketo
A member of a notorious gang of machete robbers which terrorised Mutare’s leafy eastern suburbs between October and December 2018 making off with property worth over $24 000 has been jailed 56 years.
Kudakwashe Agustinyu Chirara, 31, of Chirara village in Magunje confessed to seven robberies, one break-in and illegally skipping the Zimbabwe-Mozambique border when he appeared before magistrate Loice Mukunyadzi.
Six years of the sentence have been suspended for five years on condition of good behaviour leaving him to serve an effective 50-year jail stint.
Chirara can cut his sentence with a further 10 years if he can pay restitution for the items that were not recovered amounting to $2 309.
At the height of their excursions, the gang struck fear in residents as they would break doors and brazenly ransack homes at times hitting three homes in a night and at others on consecutive nights casting questions on the police’s competencies.
He was arrested on February 12 after months of playing cat and mouse with the police.
Some members of the gang who have been arrested and sentenced assisted in the recovery of some of the stolen items.
They would mostly steal laptops, plasma televisions, smart-phones among other pricey household goods.
Tawananyasha Muuya was prosecuting.
Meanwhile, a 22-year-old Odzi man has been handed a nine-month sentence for bedding his underage girlfriend.
Zvikomborero Maundike of Stonedale village, Vhori Farm in Odzi was convicted on his own plea of guilty by a Mutare magistrate.
He was however spared imprisonment after the sentence was commuted to 245 hours of community service.
It was the state’s case that Maundike proposed love and was accepted by the minor in August 2018.
At unknown dates in September the two lovebirds became intimate on a number of occasions.
Maundike was on the night of September 2018 caught pants down bedding the minor in her sister’s home by her uncle. He however managed to flee.
A police report was made leading to Maundike’s arrest this week.
Fletcher Karombe was prosecuting. Daily News.
