Cephas Shava
MWENEZI – Two serial burglars who had been terrorising Rutenga residents in the night, getting away with valuable household property since January this year, were on May 02 convicted of the offences.
Philip Ziga (36) and Takunda Chimbo (23) pleaded guilty to 14 counts of unlawful entry into premises and were sentenced to 51 months behind bars.
Thirteen months were conditionally set aside, leaving each to serve an effective 38 months imprisonment.
Magistrate Honest Musiiwa remanded out of custody one of the co-accused, Bernard Mlambo (28), who is implicated in one of the counts.
It is the State’s case that from January to April this year, the two accused connived and unlawfully entered into 14 different premises from where they took various property including plasma TV sets, electrical gadgets, mattresses, cell phones.
During the day, Ziga and Chimbo, who are self-employed builders, would visit their victims’ homesteads pretending to be looking for work but would in the night return to steal.
A local pastor is also said to be one of the victims and some people suspect that the criminals used juju to break into houses and steal property.
When the victim woke up to find his house empty, he immediately alerted detectives who swiftly carried patrols and found Mlambo, who is a known vendor during the day, carrying some of the stolen goods on his way to the bus stop.
During interrogation, Mlambo spilt the beans, leading to the arrest of his co-accused. Some of the stolen property was recovered at the accused’s respective homesteads.
Other stolen items were recovered in Harare.
Angelinah Makoya prosecuted.crime
