Bulawayo High Court clears 10 murder cases

Peter Matika, Bulawayo Bureau

THE High Court in Bulawayo has already cleared 10 murder cases out of a total of 23 that were set for sitting since the beginning of the term last month.

The National Prosecution Authority (NPA) reported that while progress has been made, 13 other set-down cases were unable to proceed due to various technicalities.

The High Court is meant to oversee a total of 83 cases from this region by the end of the legal first term.

Among the cases, six have resulted in convictions, with the outcomes of the rest awaiting judgment.

One of the notable cases involved is for a repeat offender, Khumbulani Tshuma who found himself in a tragic altercation during a gambling contest in Cowdray Park suburb sometime in 2022.

The incident escalated when a misunderstanding arose, leading to Tshuma fatally stabbing a man in the abdomen near the pelvis with a knife in a seemingly innocuous environment.

Among other cases of concern being heard are two former police officers from Beitbridge who fatally assaulted an unlawful entry and theft suspect before they burnt his remains.

Xander Siyasayi and Daniel Peyani, who were stationed at Tuli and Zezani police camps, tortured and killed Blessing Nare before burning his remains. Later on, they stashed his remains in a sack and hid it in a drainage system to cover up their crime. The incident occurred in December 2020.

The duo is alleged to have committed the crime while investigating a break-in at Toporo Special Bottle Store in Zezani. The matter only came to light after Nare’s mother, Sibongile Ndou, reported that her son did not return home since his arrest.

Siyasayi and Peyani were questioned about Nare’s whereabouts to which they claimed that Nare had escaped from their custody and efforts to chase him were in vain.

A search was commissioned on 7 January 2021, and the decomposing remains of Nare were found stashed in a white sack inside a concrete conduit small drainage system. Siyasayi and Peyani were eventually pinned to the murder and were arrested.

Another case is of a murder incident that occurred in Guyu, Matabeleland South where the accused, Proud Siziba stabbed the deceased once on the left back upper abdomen and indiscriminately all over the body with an okapi knife during a scuffle.

Meanwhile, the Midlands High Court Circuit has managed to clear 60 murder cases securing 24 convictions and 12 acquittals, a remarkable progress in addressing its backlog of cases.

The special circuit court was established in response to a backlog of over 500 cases, some dating as far back as 2019, which were identified by Prosecutor General Loyce Matanda-Moyo during her visit to the Midlands Province early last year.

Following the visit, the Chief Justice, Luke Malaba authorised the creation of special circuit courts to expedite the resolution of these cases.

The first phase, conducted in September 2024, was highly successful, resolving nearly 140 cases with an impressive clearance rate of 90 percent.

“This initiative seeks to expedite the resolution of these cases, with particular attention to the disproportionately high number of murder cases frequently involving artisanal miners and the use of lethal weapons, including knives and machetes,” NPA added.

Speaking at the official opening of the 2025 Legal Year in Bulawayo, Chief Justice Luke Malaba expressed concern over the high number of unresolved murder cases in the Midlands.

He noted that the Bulawayo High Court had to sit on the circuit in Gweru to clear 137 cases last year.

He said the high number of murder cases in the Midlands prompted the Judicial Service Commission to set up an extraordinary circuit as the public was now losing confidence in the justice system.