32 murder cases lined up as High Court term opens
World reacts to US embassy relocation to Jerusalem
THE second term of the High Court commenced yesterday with 32 murder trials on the roll among them the case of alleged serial killer Rodney Tongai Jindu.
Jindu’s trial, in which the State has lined up 27 witnesses, is expected to commence in July.
Another prominent case is that of Spencer Sithole who allegedly fatally assaulted Bulawayo City Council’s assistant director of Engineering Services, Engineer Mbuthi Gugu Mkhwananzi, after the two clashed at a girlfriend’s house in Fourwinds.
According to the High Court in Bulawayo’s Criminal Cause list, Jindu who doctors certified fit to stand trial will be in the dock on July 10 to 11 facing two counts of murder.
Jindu (27), who is on remand at Khami Remand Prison, made headlines last year after allegedly killing his friends Mboneli Joko Ncube and Cyprian Kudzurunga.
He allegedly shot dead Kudzurunga (28) of Queens Park East on January 29 last year, buried him in a shallow grave in Burnside suburb and sent a message to the deceased’s mother pretending to be her son who had suddenly decided to leave the country.
According to State papers, on January 12 last year, Jindu drove to a supermarket situated at corner Robert Mugabe Way and 11th Avenue and met Ncube.
They proceeded to Burnside suburb, but the motive of the trip was not mentioned in court papers.
On arrival in Burnside, Jindu allegedly drew an Optima pistol serial number 13752 from his car and allegedly shot Ncube twice in the chest and he died on the spot. He allegedly chopped the body into pieces before burying the parts in four shallow graves.
On January 29, Jindu was in the company of Kudzurunga walking from Glengarry to Queens Park East. Jindu was armed with an Optima pistol serial number 13752.
After walking for a while, Jindu, who was walking behind Kudzurunga, allegedly shot him in the head and abdomen twice and he fell down and died on the spot. He took his cellphone and laptop.
Jindu, the record read, rushed back home and hid the pistol and the now deceased’s laptop in his workshop. He took a wheelbarrow and returned to the murder scene. He shoved the body into a plastic bag, loaded it onto the wheelbarrow and pushed it back home.
He later drove to Burnside where he allegedly secretly buried the body at a vacant residential stand. Jindu took the deceased’s cellphone and laptop and sold them for $400. Police investigations led to his arrest and he confessed that he killed the deceased and made indications which led to the recovery of the body.
The stolen goods and firearm used in committing THE US administration has officially relocated the country’s embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, fulfilling one of Donald Trump’s key promises during his election campaign.
A special US delegation attended the inauguration ceremony on Monday, which coincided with the 70th anniversary of Israel’s founding.
The move infuriated Palestinians and sparked international condemnation. Previous US presidents, as well as nearly every other country, refrained from opening embassies in Jerusalem, arguing that the city’s final status should first be resolved through Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.
Israel’s foreign ministry said all 86 countries with diplomatic missions in Israel were invited to the embassy opening today, yet only 33 countries confirmed attendance.
Palestinian leaders see East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state and have said that Trump’s move disqualifies the US as a peace mediator.
While Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the embassy move marked a “glorious day”, and as the US delegation posed for photos, hospitals in the besieged Gaza Strip called for urgent blood donations as Israeli forces fired live ammunition at unarmed Palestinians demonstrating for the right to return to the homes from which they were violently expelled from in 1948.
At least 52 Palestinians were killed, and more than 2 000 were wounded, according to health officials in Gaza.
The Cairo-based Arab League, comprising 22 member states, urged the international community to oppose what it considers an “unjust decision” and the ongoing “Israeli occupation” of Jerusalem
It called the embassy relocation a “blatant attack on the feelings of Arabs and Muslims” and a “grave violation of the the offences were recovered.
Sithole’s trial commences on June 19 with eight witnesses expected to take to the stand.
Sithole (33) of Hillside suburb in Bulawayo allegedly punched his rival suitor Mkhwananzi several times before striking him using a dressing table and a wooden stool at the woman’s house in Fourwinds.
Mkhwananzi died a few days later at Mater Dei Hospital, allegedly due to the injuries sustained as a result of the attack. Sithole is out on bail. Also on the list is Bulawayo woman, Glady’s Sibanda who allegedly killed her four-year old niece and buried the body in the yard of her rented home last May. Her trial kicks off on June 7.
Another case is that of Prosper Dungeni (19) who is accused of stabbing Mthulisi Ncube, a vendor who was trying to stop a fight. Dungeni allegedly plunged a knife into Ncube’s neck in a turf war involving teenage gangsters in Pumula suburb last year.
Bino Ndou, a 41-year-old suspected poacher who allegedly shot and killed a game ranger at Nottingham Estate, 40km south west of Beitbridge in April last year will face trial on 12 to 13 June .
Ndou had been cornered by three game rangers while checking his snares in the estate.
This term of the High Court is expected to end on August 3. — AuxiliaK — rules of international law” that would destabilise the region.
Palestinians have asked for an urgent meeting at the Arab League today to discuss the matter.
Egypt’s al-Azhar religious institution meanwhile urged the international community to use “all peaceful means” to “dismiss positions of countries that sided with the Zionist entity,” referring to Israel. Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, the UN high commissioner for human rights, called for the immediate stop of Israeli live fire targeting dozens.
A statement read on Twitter: “Shocking killing of dozens, injury of hundreds by Israeli live fire in Gaza must stop now. The right to life must be respected. Those responsible for outrageous human rights violations must be held to account. The international community needs to ensure justice for victims.”
Earlier, Antonio Guterres, secretary-general of the United Nations, expressed concern about “the high number of people killed” in Gaza.
Speaking to reporters in Austria’s capital, Vienna, the UN chief said that the Gaza bloodshed showed the need for a political solution. “There is no Plan B to a two-state solution in which Israelis and Palestinians can live in peace,” Guterres said.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif called the US embassy opening in Jerusalem “a day of great shame”.
“Israeli regime massacres countless Palestinians in cold blood as they protest in the world’s largest open air prison,” he wrote on Twitter.
“Meanwhile, Trump celebrates move of US illegal embassy and his Arab collaborators move to divert attention”.
Last week, Trump defied last-ditch efforts by European allies and withdrew the US from a multinational nuclear agreement signed with Iran in 2015.
“Definitely their measures on moving their embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and Iran’s nuclear issue will not go unchallenged,” Ali Larijani, the speaker of Iran’s parliament, said on Monday, warning that the relocation would inflame tensions in the Middle East.
“These sorts of actions will increase tension in the region and the world,” Iran’s semi-official ISNA news agency quoted Larijani as saying.
Larijani urged Muslim countries to take more serious measures in response to Trump’s “wrong and unwise decision”.
Lebanon’s Hezbollah group called the US decision a unilateral step “that Palestinians will not accept, and therefore it is worthless”.
The group’s deputy leader, Sheikh Naim Kassem, made his comments in a speech in Beirut on Monday marking the 70th anniversary of what Arabs refer to as the Nakba or “Catastrophe”, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were expelled from what is now Israel during the 1948 war around Israel’s creation. — Al Jazeera