By Chantelle Muzanenhamo
Private investigator Tafadzwa Chidawa, who is better known as Detective Kedha, has been found not guilty of theft.
He was cleared of charges along with his co-defendants, Paradza Passmore Matubu, Perseverance Chisango, Malvern Mutanda, and Francis Takura.
Chief Magistrate Vongai Guwuriro announced the verdict yesterday 5 March morning, mentioning that the complainant’s testimony had many inconsistencies.
The court had doubts about the accusations against Chidawa and his associates after the complainant, Nyasha Matanhire, confessed to making up parts of her story.
The case involved a complicated scheme with Matanhire and one of the accused, Malvern Mutanda. He allegedly convinced Matanhire that he had US$100,000 in dirty banknotes that needed special cleaning. He claimed she would also need to provide US$20,000 in clean cash to complete the cleaning process, offering her a big commission for her help. Believing him, Matanhire got the money and went with Mutanda to Blue Ridge Lodge in Harare on August 27, 2020, where they were supposed to clean the money.
Unknown to Matanhire, Mutanda was working with Detective Kedha and the others to trick her. When they arrived at the lodge, Matanhire gave Mutanda the US$20,000, which he put in a cooler box. Then, Chidawa and his group rushed in, pretending to be police officers. They forcibly took Mutanda, grabbed the cooler box, and placed him into a waiting vehicle. Before they let her go, two members of the group restrained Matanhire.
After this staged incident, Mutanda and his accomplices split the stolen $20,000 among themselves. The plan came undone when Matanhire tried to explain the missing money by saying she had been robbed, but her story fell apart when detectives arrested Mutanda and found some of the things he had bought with the stolen cash.
In her decision, Chief Magistrate Guwuriro highlighted that Matanhire’s admission of lying to her husband about the robbery raised serious doubts about the whole case.
“Once she admitted to lying, it was hard for the court to believe her story,” Guwuriro said.
In the end, the inconsistencies in Matanhire’s testimony led to the acquittal of Detective Kedha and his co-defendants.