Rushwaya denied bail again
SUSPENDED Zimbabwe Miners Federation president Henrietta Rushwaya will spend more time in remand prison after the High Court on Wednesday denied her bail on charges of attempting to smuggle gold to Dubai after four gold bars weighing 6kg were found in her hand luggage.
Rushwaya was intercepted and arrested at the Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport in October last year, while on her way to Dubai with 6kg of processed gold stashed in her hand luggage.
Through her lawyer Tapson Dzvetero, the former Zimbabwe Football Association chief executive denied the charges when she appeared before magistrate Ngoni Nduna.
She was charged with contravening section 182 of the Customs and Excise Act after she failed to produce a gold export licence.
Allegations are that on October 26 at around 11am, Rushwaya was at the Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport enroute to the United Arab Emirates, Dubai.
It is alleged when she arrived at the airport, she went through departure procedures.
The State alleges her passport was stamped and the boarding pass for Emirates was issued.
Rushwaya then went to the X-ray screening point using the VIP route and was asked to place her luggage for scanning by an official, who detected a dense colour in the hand luggage.
Detectives were summoned and they discovered 6 095,66 grammes of gold.
They asked Rushwaya to produce an export licence and she failed to do so, leading to her arrest. l