Samaita counts his losses
A 42-year-old Mutare woman who fraudulently sold a house to businessman and musician, Brian Runganga, has been jailed five years.
Runganga who is popularly known as Samaita in the music industry was duped US$90 000 by Seclean Kadawu and the now late Harare-based lawyer, Shepherd Makonyere.
The court heard that Kadawu and Makonyere illegally sold someone else’s Borderville house to Runganga.
Kadawu was charged with contravening Section 136 of the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act, Chapter 9:23, when she appeared before Mutare regional magistrate, Mr Richard Ramaboea last week.
She was sentenced to five years in prison but will serve four and half years after Mr Ramaboea suspended six months on condition of good behaviour.
The court heard that sometime between 2017 and 2018, Kadawu and Makonyere connived to sell the Borderville property to Runganga.
This was after Kadawu and her ex-husband, Tawanda Jeffery Nyamudeza, had sold it to Alfred Zivanai Mukarakate.
Kadawu was married to Nyamudeza from 2001 to 2013.
During the subsistence of their marriage, Kadawu and Nyamudeza sold their house to Mukarakate.
In 2013, during Kadawu and Nyamudeza’s divorce proceedings, Kadawu was legally represented by Makonyere.
Despite the fact that Makonyere knew that the Borderville property had already been sold, he teamed up with Kadawu to sell it to Runganga.
Runganga paid US$90 000, but became suspicious when the pair failed to give him the property’s title deeds, leading to him making a police report.
Runganga has not recovered his money.