Zimbabwe: A woman identified as Sakhile Tanyanyiwa, aged 34, has been put behind bars and sentenced to 18 months in prison. The lady has been apprehended for kidnapping a little baby from the mother outside the Gweru Provincial Hospital.
Reportedly, Sakhile Tanyanyiwa is the wife of the former Police Commissioner Mekia Tanyanyiwa. She was pleaded guilty to the charge of kidnapping. The case is presided over by the Gweru Provincial Magistrate Beaulity Dube.
The magistrate Dube has suspended six months of the sentence, leaving her with an effective 12-month jail term.
As per the case stated by the police, the incident occurred last Friday, when the infant’s mother was returning back from Gweru Provincial Hospital after she collected her baby’s birth record.
As per the sources, Wife of the former Police Commissioner – Sakhile Tanyanyiwa was accompanied by the two other people in white Toyota Aqua with the registration number AFW 6208 and offered the mother a lift, after which the incident happened.
According to the reports, they stopped at 6247 South View during the journey, where the culprit, Sakhile, asked the mother to assist another woman in disembarking from the vehicle.
Whereas the victim’s mother has complained that the car sped off towards the Gweru-Bulawayo highway, with her baby still inside.
As the incident happened, the distraught mother promptly reported the incident to the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) in Gweru.
As per the reports, Sakhile took the child home and claimed to her husband that she had given birth to the child. However, her husband grew suspicious after hearing this, particularly in relation to the news of a baby abduction in Gweru.
The former police commissioner Mekia Tanyanyiwa acted on his suspicions and took the baby to the CID Gweru office. Following this, Sakhile eventually handed over herself to the police.
The lady has been sentenced to eighteen months now and has underlined the gravity of child abduction cases and serves as a warning against such criminal acts.