By Patience Gondo
THREE men have appeared before a Beitbridge court facing allegations of impersonating police officers.
Willard Mutsauri, Reina Kusakara, and Romeo Moyo pleaded not guilty when they appeared before provincial magistrate Brenda Kachepa sitting at Beitbridge on Thursday.
The charges arise from an incident on July 1, 2025 , when the trio allegedly mounted a roadblock along the Beitbridge-Masvingo highway.
Unknown to the three, two officers from the anti-corruption unit Catibet Musizvinofa and Dominic Marodza, had got wind of the alleged criminal activity.
Musizvinofa and Marodza had in a tip-off heard the trio was using a white Toyota Probox car which they raided but it sped off but crashed in the high speed car chase.
Two were arrested but another one in a police uniform allegedly ran away.
Mutsauri, represented by Jabulani Mberesi of Tavenhave & Machingauta Legal Practitioners, said he was just a taxi driver who picked Kusakara and Moyo while on his way to Beitbridge from Lutumba.
Mberesi said Mutsauri later gave a lift to an unidentified police officer in full uniform, who instructed him to stop near a white GD6 vehicle to speak to a relative.
Moments later, an unmarked vehicle arrived, prompting the uniformed officer and Moyo to jump into Mutsauri’s vehicle and instruct him to speed off resulting in a pursuit by the CID officers.
The Toyota probox then crashed in the bushes, where the uniformed police ran off and disappeared, leaving the three accused on the scene.
Mberesi maintained that Mutsauri is the registered tax driver of the Probox and that the other two accused were passengers not accomplices.
Under cross examination, Musizvinofa and Marodza gave conflicting evidence.
Musizvinofa said he did not see any of the accused in uniform during the pursuit but Marodza testified that Mutsauri wore a police reflectormyo a black anti-smuggling overall, and Kusakara a police puff jacket.
The matter continues on October 10 2025.