Incarcerated businessman Mike Chimombe and Moses Mpofu say chances of them getting a fair trial are slim because their case was about political persecution as they raised questions about the fact that controversial tenderprenuer Wicknell Chivayo remained untouched.
Mpofu and Chimombe are facing charges of duping the state of millions under the presidential goat scheme.
Chimombe and Mpofu are accusing the state and the courts of violating their rights saying they had been denied bail on several occasions despite it being a right.
The duo said this through their lawyers while submitting evidence before High Court Judge Justice Pisirayi Kwenda on their application for referral to the Constitutional Court.
Chimombe and Mpofu are also accusing the judge of unilaterally granting an application for the matter to be livestreamed without any input or submissions by their lawyers.
They charged that the decision to allow the proceedings to be broadcast live or livestreamed on various media platforms was arrived at without their participation and consent and that of the state.
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“On the third day of the hearing, the learned judge it’s not clear whether in the presence of assessors or not indicated that the court had commenced late because he was entertaining in chambers an application to have the trial proceedings livestreamed,” the duo submitted.
“The learned judge advised that he had granted the application for the media to livestream the proceedings in chambers.
“This alleged application was entertained in the absence of the accused persons and to the exclusion of the state.
"It is further not clear who the applicants were.
“It is not clear who were the parties to that application as the accused persons were not cited nor served with a copy of such application.”
The duo want the Constitutional Court to determine whether their continued detention violated their rights as accused persons.
They alleged that they were being punished after they were wrongly accused of leaking the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) tender documents and audios of Chivayo bragging about how he bribed certain government officials.
The duo want justice Kwenda to grant their application for referral of their matter to Concourt and also to stay the proceedings of the trial pending the ConCourt determination.
Prosecutors say the charges emanate from tender documents submitted by the two men through a company called Blackdeck Private Limited in September 2021.
The Lands ministry invited bids for the supply of 632,001 goats under a scheme worth US$87 757 168 to distribute goats nationally.
Acting on the misrepresentations, prosecutors say the ministry went on to pay 30% of the contract in the local currency, an amount of ZWL1,6 billion which was allegedly equivalent to US$7 712 197 in two instalments on April 21, 2022, and June 29, 2022.
The court believed that the ministry was prejudiced of US$7 380 751.85.
Chimombe and Mpofu said it was perplexing that Chivayo had not been charged over the Zec scandal yet it was one of the reasons the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission started investigating them.
They said the goat scandal is being used to divert attention from the Zec scandal.