Ex-Foreign Minister Walter Mzembi faces charges, including theft of government funds and vehicles

Zimbabwe’s former Foreign Affairs Minister Walter Mzembi will remain in custody after the country’s high court dismissed his appeal for bail pending trial.

Last month, IOL reported that a magistrate’s court in Zimbabwe had dismissed Mzembi’s application, challenging his placement on remand and extending his detention.

This week, the state-owned newspaper The Herald reported that high court judge Regis Dembure upheld the magistrate court’s earlier decision to deny bail to the former minister. The superior court ruled that the politician failed to prove he could be trusted to appear in court to stand trial, having jumped bail already and been absent from Zimbabwe for seven years.

Mzembi, who has been based in South Africa for around seven years, has been in custody since June. There are several media reports suggesting that the former minister’s health is deteriorating behind bars.

Mzembi faces allegations of theft of trust property involving government funds, vehicles, and public viewing television screens. According to The Herald, Mzembi faces two serious allegations including unlawfully disposing of 16 LED television screens worth US$800,000 (more than R15 million) that the Zimbabwean government procured for public viewing during the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

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Prosecutors insist Mzembi distributed the State-owned screens to churches and other institutions without the required approval from the country’s ministry of finance. Additionally, Mzembi is accused of misusing funds raised for the 20th United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) General Assembly, which Zimbabwe co-hosted with Zambia in 2013.

In The Herald newspaper report, prosecutors allege that Mzembi and others solicited sponsorship from corporate entities and deposited the funds into an unregistered trust account. The state says three vehicles purchased with the funds were unlawfully converted for personal use.

Mzembi, the 61-year-old former Masvingo South Member of Parliament, was arrested on June 14 when he, in a surprise move, returned to Zimbabwe from his base in South Africa, where he had stayed for around seven years.

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When he left Zimbabwe in 2018, Mzembi was on bail, and he had convinced the Harare authorities that he needed urgent cancer treatment from experts in South Africa. He never returned home to face trial on serious charges of corruption and criminal abuse of office.

In 2021, state media in Zimbabwe reported that the government was awaiting a response from its South African counterparts regarding a request to extradite Mzembi to Harare for trial on theft and fraud charges.

First published by IOL

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