KIDNAPPING victim speaks out.
The quartet had what seemed like a genuine business enquiry and since he is well-known in his trade, he did not suspect their motives to be sinister.
FOR a man whose day job involves creating artistic videos, part of Silas Chinaa’s life unfolded in a way that could have passed as a drama script. Chinaa (34) from Mufakose, Harare, was involved in a love-inspired kidnapping which saw him spend five days in solitary confinement at an unknown location.
Before his disappearance on July 1 this year, he had received a number of unnerving messages from a man who felt his marriage was being encroached into.
The threats, according to Chinaa, were triggered by his meeting with an ex-lover who happened to be now married.
“A few days earlier I had met Ruvimbo Muyambo whom I used to have a relation- ship with. We exchanged greetings and I escorted her to a shoe shop where she wanted to get a few things sorted,” he said.
It was after this meeting that Muyambo’s husband, Innocent Maendesa, threatened Chinaa through messages.
“After a few days I received a message from Maendesa saying that my days were numbered. I did not take this lightly and shared them with my wife as well as friends,” Chinaa said.
It turns out the threats were no bluff as a terrible occurrence was about to pass.
On the ominous Saturday, Chinaa decided against going to his workplace in fear of harm. True to his instinct the day ended exactly as he had anticipated.
“On 1 July, I woke up with an odd feeling that something was going to happen to me. Despite having a lot of work on my plate, I decided to stay at home since I was not sure of the unspecified action,” he said.
After spending the fateful day indoors, Chinaa decided to refresh with a walk, and little did he know he was about to be captured.
“In the evening that day, we had finished watching a soccer match between Lesotho and Namibia when I went to park my car at Mucherechesi car park. I was in no hurry to go back home since I was filling in my soccer bet slip,” Chinaa said.
The delay meant he missed a chance to evade a threatening situation.
“On my way out I was approached by four men who were in a silver nine-seater car whose make I cannot remember,” said Chinaa, replaying the events leading up to his capture.
The quartet had what seemed like a genuine business enquiry and since he is well known in his trade, he did not suspect their motives to be sinister.
“One of the men asked me if I could transfer a funeral footage from a flash to a DVD. I told them that I did not have my computer with me and that it would be difficult for me to assist them,” said Chinaa.
His attempt to walk back to his family was scuttled by their insistence which prompted him to consider assisting them.
“I told them I could only help them at my uncle’s place since there was a computer at his house. I tried to get the front seat, but they said I should get in the middle seat, a gesture I did not suspect,” he said.
An unusual request from one of the men gave Chinaa suspicion as they drove to his uncle’s place.
“The guy who was driving asked me for my phone and I told them I had left it at home charging. Their chorus-like reaction made me suspect that something was wrong, but before I could make anything out, the two guys at the back choked me from behind and the one I was next to hopped on my lap and pinned me down,” a teary Chinaa said.
He says while he was under vice, he was injected with a substance that knocked him out.
“The last thing I saw was a service station in Mufakose; when I woke up I was in an empty building that looked like a cottage. It was cold, without a blanket and confused as I didn’t know where I was,” he said.
The following day he was alone and lost; attempts to work out an escape were difficult as there was a steel door and heavy dog barks outside the room.
“I was afraid that if I shouted I would be harmed, so I stayed put trying to process everything that had happened, but with limited success.
Later that day at night, two guys came and held a light to my eyes. They kept asking me what was going on between myself and Innocent’s wife,” Chinaa said.
I told them that I ended things with her in 2007, but they did not believe me,” said Chinaa.
After begging the duo for food, they gave him four slices of bread and a soft drink. On a Tuesday, Chinaa’s captors came again at night with a small blanket after he had requested in the face of the cold July weather.
Coupled with the reprieve from the biting cold, the interrogation continued.
The same routine continued until Thursday when Chinaa made an audacious request to his captors.
“They were bringing me sadza in a kaylite which appeared to have been bought in a supermarket and a drink. Everyday after I ate, they kept asking me why I was still with Innocent’s wife and I was growing tired of giving the same response,” Chinaa narrated the conditions he faced in captivity.
Thoughts of his family gave him bravery to dare the men who held him.
“I was worried about my family and how they were coping in my absence. I then asked the guys to either bring Innocent and his wife so that we would talk or they should just kill me since I was tired of being away from my family,” he said.
After his request, they forced him to “swallow a small blue pill” which made him unconscious.
Chinaa says attempts to ascertain what he was injected with have not been possible due to financial constraints.
“I went to the hospital for preliminary tests and the doctors said I needed further tests for them to be sure of what was fed into my system. Unfortunately, I could not pursue that route further because of the costs associated with tests,” he said.
Chinaa was dropped at a service station in Kuwadzana in the evening on July 6.
After days of despair and desperation, his wife Mariam Munhuweyi (36) said she received a call from a private number saying her husband had been found at a service station in Kuwadzana 6.
“I was praying that even if he is dead they should give us his body to allow us to bury him with dignity. I am happy he is back, our daughter was weeping inconsolably since his disappearance,” she said.
On the extra-marital claims, Munhuweyi says she believed her husband when he told her that he had not contacted the woman in question since 2007.
“Silas told me that he ended things with the lady in question and I believed him. It was a tough week without him; it made me reflect on a lot of things around my relationship and life,” Munhuweyi said.
After the scare, she said she just wants her family to enjoy the peace and silence.
Chinaa’s uncle recalls the condition they found Chinaa in, saying it was far from flattering.
“The state we found him in is worrying, for a person who does not drink or smoke to appear intoxicated as he was. They must have fed substances into his body,” his angry uncle Mr Silas Chinaa Snr complained.
After five months before the courts, the case was recently concluded.
On December 12, Innocent Maendesa was found guilty of the charges of kidnapping and sentenced to three years in prison. Two were suspended on condition that he does not commit a similar offence in the next five years. The remaining one year was suspended on condition that he completes 425 hours of community service at Warren Park Clinic, failure of which will see him serving the year in prison.
Chinaa is a bitter man. He believes Maendesa got a light sentence in comparison to what he went through.