Court dismisses contractor’s application

HARARE Magistrate Mrs Letwin Rwodzi has dismissed an application for exception made by building contractor Geogios Katsemberis, who is accused of duping a land developer of close to US$1 million in an abortive joint venture to build cluster houses in Harare’s Borrowdale suburb.

In dismissing the application, Mrs Rwodzi said the issues raised by the accused were at best a defence to the main charge.

As such, there were no grounds for exception.

She ruled that a decision on admissibility of some of the documents relied upon could only be made at trial following the rules of evidence.

“The exceptions raised by the defence are thereby dismissed,” she said.

Katsimberis’ lawyer Mr Tendai Biti said he needed time to study the ruling and to take instructions from his client.

Mr Biti said they were considering making an application for Mrs Rwodzi’s recusal.

Prosecutors Messrs Michael Reza and Tafara Chirambira opposed Biti’s application saying no further postponement should be made.

Mrs Rwodzi postponed the matter to August 3.

Katsemberis recently made an application for exception arguing that the State’s outline did not disclose that he committed an offence.

Katsemberis last month had his application for referral of the matter to the Constitutional Court dismissed by the same court.

Responding to that application for referral of the matter to the ConCourt, Mr Reza told the court that Katsemberis was the correct accused person in the matter.

He said Katsemberis used a plan which was not approved by the City of Harare.

“The chief building inspector was supposed to sign on the plan which was used by the accused, but in this case, nothing was done,” he said.

Mr Reza further told the court that Katsemberis went on to build a show house without approved building plans.

“A fraudster will use the official stamp and append his signature so that if any of his subordinates raise questions, they will say everything is aboveboard, but his intention is to misrepresent so that another person acts according to the misrepresentation,” said Mr Reza.

He further submitted that 95 percent of the submissions made by Mr Biti in his application for exception as basis of his client’s defence were triable issues.

“In the dock is the correct accused person and he is the one who entered into the joint agreement and his signature and initials appear on every page of it,” he said.

On two previous hearings the court heard that Katsimberis only decided to make a counter report against council officials and the land developer’s employees two months after his pending fraud case had already been reported to police in an attempt to create confusion and a smokescreen.

This was said by Mr Michael Reza while opposing Katsimberis’ application to have the matter referred to the Constitutional Court.