BREAKING NEWS: Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage Minister Kazembe Kazembe has been given a two-week ultimatum by Harare Magistrate Mazhande to pay RTGS$199 500 to Simon Mandoza, a student based in Gweru as compensation for damages he suffered when he was assaulted by some Zimbabwe Republic Police members in 2018. Magistrate Mazhande ruled that if Minister Kazembe Kazembe failed to pay compensation to Mandoza within 14 days, he will be sentenced to serve 60 days in prison.
Through her lawyer Fiona Iliff and Obey Shava of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, Mandoza sued Kazembe Kazembe and ZRP Commissioner-General Godwin Matanga after some police officers arrested the college student on 20 September 2018 while he was standing outside a fast food outlet in Harare’s CBD, waiting for his brother to pick him up.
Unbeknown to him ZRP members were carrying out an operation against alleged informal traders in the CBD at that time. Mandoza was assaulted by ZRP members with an open palm and then forced to get into the back of a police vehicle. While in the vehicle, ZRP members poked Mandoza a truncheon on his shoulder and at the back of his head, threatening him with further assault. Mandoza was finally taken to Harare Central Police Station, where he was finally released without a charge being preferred against him.
