Justice Loice Matanda-Moyo
The National Prosecuting Authority of Zimbabwe (NPAZ) handled over 500 murder cases last year with Prosecutor General, Justice Loice Matanda-Moyo, raising concern over the high incidence of the crime in her 2023 annual report recently tabled in Parliament.
Apart from the PG’s concerns, the police also noted a worrying increase in murder cases caused by domestic violence and disputes over sharing of property and extra-marital affairs.
While all homicides except for accidents are treated as murder at the investigation and remand stages, very often in the final trials or the final verdict the lesser crime of culpable homicide is substituted as there was no actual or construed intent to kill, but the killer took action that the reasonable person would recognise could lead to death or serious injury.
In her report, Justice Matanda-Moyo said the NPAZ handled 505 murder cases last year.
“We managed to reduce the backlog of criminal cases. The NPAZ received 505 murder cases and managed to complete 359 cases. The clearance rate was 71,8 percent.
“It is worrisome that murder cases are on the increase and we add our voice to the call for increased High Courts across the whole country. Midlands Province is now ripe for a High Court seat. The province is currently sitting on approximately 400 murder dockets that are ready for trial. A High Court Circuit for Gokwe will be most welcome,” she said.
The Prosecutor General said the National Prosecuting Authority handled 510 sudden death cases and attended 470 while 40 were still pending.
In a statement yesterday, national police spokesperson, Commissioner Paul Nyathi expressed concern over the increase in murder cases. A notable number of cases occurred at beer drinking places while other incidents involved minors aged between seven and 17 years.
Comm Nyathi called for the public to find ways to peacefully resolve differences.
“The ZRP urges the public to find peaceful methods of resolving disputes or differences at family and society level. The church, traditional leaders and the general community are implored to come on board to ensure the public respects the sanctity of human life.
“Police will continue to engage communities to become law-abiding citizens in all facets of life,” he said.
In her report, Justice Matanda-Moyo said the NPAZ handled 1 021 economic crimes last year and they included, fraud cases, corruption, criminal abuse of office and other related matters.
Of the 1 021 cases, 433 were referred for trial with the National Prosecuting Authority declining to prosecute 51 while 139 were referred to station with 626 pending cases.
The PG also said the authority’s asset forfeiture unit had recovered properties running into millions of US dollars.
“During the period under review, an estimated value of US$100 million was recovered through forfeiture orders and preservatory orders.”
Justice Matanda-Moyo said her office was being hampered in prosecuting drug offences because of time taken to obtain results of samples analyses.
“While we have made strides in this area, a current challenge affecting prosecution timelines is the time taken to receive results of drug sample analyses from the Criminal Investigations Department’s narcotics unit.
“The NPAZ is actively engaged with CID Narcotics to explore solutions that can expedite the testing process,” she said.
The PG said despite the challenges the NPAZ faced throughout 2023, most provinces and specialised units had however, performed well with the backlog of cases falling from 16 373 in 2022 to about 9 000 last year. — Herald
