Diplomat dragged to court over Ponzi scheme
A DIPLOMAT linked to an Asian country has been dragged before the Harare Magistrates’ Court accused of swindling his countrymen in the diaspora of millions of dollars in a Ponzi scheme.
This emerged last week when a Harare woman, Vimbai Dzingirai, was dragged to court charged with cyber-bullying the diplomat’s accomplice in the Ponzi scheme, Pride Miti.
The former Asian honorary diplomat Shamiso Fred was cited as the chairperson of the Ponzi scheme.
Dzingirai was being charged for cyber-bullying African Business Women Association (ABWA) accountant, Miti, for allegedly swindling women based in the diaspora of millions of United State dollars under the scheme.
Dzingirai had allegedly posted messages on social media exposing how the duo had swindled unsuspecting people.
The State deduced evidence from the complainant and thereafter the prosecution closed the State case. Dzingirai then applied for a discharge.
Harare magistrate Munashe Chibanda dismissed the application and put her to her defence.
However, Dzingirai then applied for the matter to be stayed pending review, but Chibanda also dismissed the application.
Aggrieved by the dismissal, Dzingirai approached the High Court which stayed the proceedings pending review.
In the application for review, Dzingirai sought the court to order that she be discharged, and she was found not guilty and acquitted.
She had also asked the court that in the event it decides she has a case to answer then the trial be held under a neutral and new magistrate.
Dzingirai had accused Chibanda of intentionally omitting information of importance to the defence during the cross-examination.
She contends that she should have been discharged at the close of the State’s case.
Dzingirai said she never admitted to the allegations hence scientific and expert-led evidence was crucial.
She challenged the court for accepting “screenshots from a Facebook page that are not verified or tendered in by experts but just submitted by the complainant who has a vendetta against her.”
She further accused the magistrate of manufacturing evidence and words not said during trial.
“At no point in time did she say she had two Facebook accounts. Even if the trial magistrate wanted to regard the accounts as two it had to be explained in detail as had been in the defence outline.
“The witness ended up explaining that the applicant owns two private accounts which became one of the grounds for application for discharge,” she said.
Dzingirai further accused Chibanda of accepting evidence tendered by the complainant way after the court proceedings.
She said Chibanda refused to give reasons for the dismissal of the application in her ruling.
High Court judge Justice Tawanda Chitapu ruled in favour of Dzingirai and ordered that the trial be restarted under a new magistrate.