HARARE – Former Foreign Affairs Minister Walter Mzembi has been ordered to be committed to prison pending trial after a Harare regional magistrate confirmed three outstanding warrants of arrest against him.
Magistrate Donald Ndirowei dismissed Mzembi’s application challenging his placement on remand and ordered him to return to court on Friday for the allocation of a trial date.
The decision follows Mzembi’s arrest last month, after he failed to appear in court since November 2018. His lawyers had stated he was out of the country seeking medical attention for cancer.
On June 17, Magistrate Ndirowei revoked Mzembi’s bail, ruling that the former minister’s failure to attend court was deliberate.
“It has not been proven that for all these years he was bedridden such that he could not travel to Zimbabwe to cancel his warrants of arrest,” Ndirowei said in his ruling.
The magistrate also noted that Mzembi had been politically active during his time abroad, serving as the campaign manager for presidential candidate Saviour Kasukuwere.
Mzembi, 61, is facing charges of criminal abuse of office and theft of trust property.
The charges relate to the disposal of televisions worth US$2 million that were purchased for the 2010 FIFA World Cup fan parks.
The state alleges he unlawfully donated some of these televisions to Emmanuel Makandiwa’s United Family International Church in Chitungwiza.
Mzembi was arrested in 2017 following the military coup that ousted late former President Robert Mugabe.
Mzembi together with former cabinet ministers Kasukuwere, Patrick Zhuwao and Jonathan Moyo fled the country after President Emmerson Mnangagwa grabbed power from Mugabe. They never returned to Zimbabwe due to fear of being arrested.
During the peak of Zanu-PF factionalism when Mugabe was still in power, the exiled former ministers were opposed to Mnangagwa’s succession plan.
Mzembi, however, returned last month and met Mnangagwa before being arrested the following day.
