By staff reporter
Citizens Coalition for Change vice president Tendai Biti who is accused of verbally assaulting a Zimbabwean investor Tatiana Aleshina was yesterday told that he must not belittle his offence because it is a criminal offence that requires to be removed from society.
Biti who was applying for the referral of his case to the Constitutional Court was grilled by prosecutor Michael Reza during a cross examination that the offence he is facing was serious.
The opposition leader had accused prosecutor Reza of targeting him saying his position as a deputy prosecutor general of the country cannot represent an accused facing mere assault case.
Reza in responding asked Biti on why he had hired an experienced lawyer who had seen it all to represent a mere assault case.
” Its a strange question without no substance that a deputy prosecutor general with years in experience should be seating in my matter it seems that there is a plot. I wonder why we have the deputy prosecutor general with years of experience seating over an assualt case,”Biti asked.
Reza however responded that the fact that he hired an experienced lawyer of many years in service to represent a mere assault case means it was an important case.
” l wouldn’t know the reason why you hired a best lawyer with years of experience to represent you in an assualt case,” Reza asked.
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Biti had asked the court to refer his case to the Constitutional Court saying his rights were violated.
He named several politicians, judicial officers, prosecutors and media personnel of interfering with his matter saying his assault case has been politicized due to interference.
Reza asked him if he was well versed with the judgement of High Court judge justice Tawanda Chitapi who dismissed his application for review of his application for recusal of the magistrate saying there was no evidence that the magistrate was bias or the prosecutor.
Biti however said his rights were violated when he sought postponements because of non-availability of his lawyer.
He said the magistrate would order the proceedings to continue despite the fact that his legal practitioners was not present.
Reza told Biti that on most occasions he was the one causing several postponements and if he was not causing the postponements the matter could have finalized.
But Biti said Reza’s conduct is to persecute him.
Reza however told magistrate Vongai Muchuchuti-Guwuriro that Biti’s application for referral had no merit and must be dismissed.
Magistrate Muchuchuti-Guwuriro postponed the matter to August 12 for the ruling of the recusal application.
Biti is accused of verbally assaulting Aleshina at the Harare magistrates court in 2020.
