FARAI CHITOTOMBE
MASVINGO-It was a difficult day for a man who appeared in Masvingo’s Magistrate court on arson charges which were put forward by his relative cum employer.
Francis Mujena from Singarimwi Village under Chief Nyajena appeared before Magistrate Elizabeth Hanzi on accusations of burning his neighbor’s house full of his annual harvest.
Enita Mandiona from the same village told the court that on April 12, this year Mujena, who came earlier on that day to collect his payment for a piece job allegedly later came back to set the granary on fire at around 9pm.
“He came around five o’clock in the evening with his wife to collect his mealies as payment for a job he had done for me and after he left he came back later at night and torched the house that contained three 90 kilogram bags of shelled maize, eight 50 kgs of groundnuts, bags of roundnuts, bags of beans, sorghum, hoes and shovels.
“We followed the footprints from the burnt house with the village policemen to his homestead at 4am the next day and that’s how we knew it was him,” the plaintiff told the court.
Locadia Garai from the adjacent Ruvengo village also nailed Mujena.
The trial continues today when the village policeman who tracked the footprints testifies in court.
