Zimbabwe: Two drug peddlers have been sentenced to life imprisonment for murdering their courier. The drug peddlers accused him of duping them of US $300 from selling crystal meth.
The drug peddlers are identified as Warren Mupunga aged 27 and Masimba Makoto aged 37, both of them has denied murdering Tinotenda Mandiyanike, three years ago but were found guilty of planning and carrying out the assault that was so severe that it turned into murder.
According to the sources, the trial for the case lasted several months in the Harare High Court. Justice Lucy-Anne Mungwari, sitting with accessors Mhandu and Chitsiga, found the two guilty.
Reportedly, Mandiyanike’s body was found dumped along the Harare-Bulawayo highway in a bid to fake a hit-and-run accident.
Convicting the two, Justice Mungwari ruled that the pair intended to kill their victim, but the judge felt the death penalty might be too harsh in the circumstances of first offenders.
The court has also exercised its limited discretion by sending the two to prison for the longest possible period in the hope that it would meet justice for this gruesome crime.
“The decision by the court also gave the victim’s relatives some idea of closure and pacify society for this irreparable wrong with the hope that it will be eternally protected from the “animals” that the duo has turned into,” said Justice Mungwari.
The Justice added that the two have long gone past the threshold of rehabilitation. “A determinate term of imprisonment would not achieve any of the objectives outlined in the guidelines as they have shown no remorse and given their drug related habits, the possibility of them reoffending cannot be discounted,” added Mungwari.
Mungwari also said that it is for the above reasons that they direct each of the offenders be and is hereby sentenced to life imprisonment.
As per the reports from the trial, the prosecution proved that Mupunga and Makoto teamed up with Abramas Masimba and another man identified as Gaza, both still at large and confronted Mandiyanike, accusing him of stealing US $300 and seven pairs of jeans before severely assaulting him.
Mupunga and his accomplices drove to Mandiyanike’s residence, where they conducted a search but could not find anything. The gang then bundled the victim, placed him in their vehicle and drove to the 62km peg along Bulawayo Road, where they dumped his remains after they failed to get medical attention at a clinic in Ruwa.