Tinomutenda Midzi in Mutare
13 March 2017, MUTARE – Kudzai Ndongwa, a male adult residing at Mbeure Village in Chipinge, who shocked many people last year after he murdered his wife, Tsenekai Mabika, for shaving her pubic hair ‘without permission’ has been jailed.
Sitting on circuit in Mutare last week, High Court judge, Justice Charles Hungwe found Ndongwa guilty of murder as defined in Section 47(1)a or (b) of the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act (Chapter 9:23) and gave him a 25 year jail sentence.
Ndongwa told the court that what his wife did was taboo in his culture.
“I did not intentionally killed her. I was trying to discipline her because what she had done is against my culture,” Ndongwa said.
It was the State’s case that on the April 3, 2016, Ndongwa was inside a bedroom hut when he noticed the deceased burying an object in a disused pit at the homestead. He went and examined it and realised it was human hair.
Ndongwa returned to his bedroom armed with a machete and preceded where Mabika was and insulted her before intentionally striking her with the machete.
Mabika attempted to flee but Ndongwa gave a chase, caught her and repeatedly hit her with the machete thereby inflicting multiple injuries on Mabika’s head, neck, chest and legs.
He left her lying and bleeding profusely in a pool of blood and went indoors to change his blood-stained clothes as well as hiding the weapon.
Moments later, fellow villagers saw the deceased lying helplessly and asked the husband what had happen but he remained indifferent but one villager, James Mbeure reported the case to the neighbourhood watch leading to the arrest of Ndongwa.
Mabika died later on and a post mortem done by a doctor from Chipinge District Hospital attributed the death to a fractured neck as well as spinal and head injuries.
Jane-Rose Matsikidze prosecuted.
