A warrant of arrest has been issued against MDC-Alliance legislator for Harare West, Joana Mamombe after she failed to attend court for trial on charges of faking abduction.
Mamombe’s lawyer, Alec Muchadehama told the court that his client is sick and admitted at a Muchadehama said Mamombe’s doctors told him that she was suffering from anxiety problems and could not attend court.
Mamombe is jointly charged with her fellow MDC-Alliance members, Cecelia Chimbiri and Netsai Marova.
The three are now expected back in court on September 29 for trial.
The trio is facing allegations of communicating and publishing false statements against the State.
It is alleged that the trio choreographed and stage-managed an abduction accusing state agents of kidnapping and dumping them at Muchapondwa village in Bindura, Mashonaland Central.
On May 13, the trio and other MDC-Alliance youths gathered in Warren Park where they staged a demonstration and on the same date the trio later communicated with their lawyers, family members and friends that they had been arrested by police and held at ZRP Harare Central.
Their legal practitioner reported to the CID law and order inquiring on the arrest of the three only to find out after verifications that the accused had not been arrested.
Two days later, their legal representative contacted the police informing them that the accused persons were found at Muchapondwa Business Centre in Bindura.
The police and the legal representatives went to the scene and collected the accused persons before taking them for medical examinations at a hospital in Waterfalls.
The trio was interviewed and made statements that they had been abducted by members of the police.
Police investigations established that the three were never abducted but stage-managed their kidnapping as they visited Belgravia at the time they alleged to have been kidnapped.
Members of the public saw them at Belgravia shopping centre driving a silver Mercedes Benz contrary to their statement that they were at an unknown place.
It is in the State’s case that existing video footage shows the times and places the accused visited during the alleged time of the abduction and will be presented in court.
The false statements attracted adverse comments from both local and international community including heads of mission of the European Union, France, German, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden among others and publications of foreign media houses condemning abductions.
