Lydia Koto
A 27 year-old man from Temeraire in Mashava will spend the next 10 years behind bars after being found guilty of stealing Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA) cables in former mining town.
Masvingo magistrate Innocent Mudzingwa on 21 September 2022 sentenced Anesu Kweshira to an effective prison term.
Representing the State, Nixon Chamisa told the court that on July 31, 2022 at around 1000 hours, a team of police officers from Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) Mashava was carrying out some investigations to weed out culprits who were stealing scrap metals within Shabanie and Mashava mines and selling them to scrap buyers from Masvingo.
During the investigations, the police officers received information that Kweshira was dealing with copper.
Assistant Inspector Ingwani Albert, Sergeant Allan Mugweni and Terrence Mupedzi who is the security supervisor at Gathsmine raided Kweshira’s residence although he was not around and recovered 4.5 kilograms of armored cables.
However, Kweshira denied the allegations before Mudzingwa saying that he did not steal the copper cables but rather he picked them up in the bush.
“I did not steal the copper cables but rather l came across them in the bush,” said Kweshira.
However, he was convicted due to overwhelming State evidence and sentenced to 10 years.