BULAWAYO – Musawenkosi Hara, 39, has been sentenced to 25 years in prison for the m_rder of her friend Thulisile Dube August last year.
Hara, who has been in custody since last year, committed the crime with her boyfriend, Farai Michael Mutasa who later committed suicide.
Dube was 36 when she met her misfortune.
During trial, the court heard Hara and her boyfriend were among Dube’s friends who went partying with her during the night of August 21, 2022, hoping from one club to the other.
At around 4AM, the group decided to retire by way of dropping friends at their respective homes.
Three members of the group were dropped at their respective places in Cowdray Park, Luveve and Nkulumane suburbs, leaving Dube in the car with Hara and her boyfriend.
They then hatched a plan to murder Dube and dispossess her of what they believed was a large a sum of money in her possession.
In her defence, which the judge said was not consistent throughout her trial, Hara claims Dube got out of the car to relieve herself and Mutasa followed her outside and hit her with a stone on the head, inflicting head injuries on her.
Hara said the parties abandoned their brawl and returned to continue with their drive towards Cowdray Park railway line.
She further told the court Mutasa stopped the car and got onto the back seat where he strangled Dube before they drove off with the corpse to refuel at Luveve.
They went on to dump the car at Emganwini and proceeded to board a lift to town to continue with their drinking spree.
The court further heard that, at around 9AM, the duo visited a friend where they spent the day drinking and unfortunately for them, when they left at 4PM, they forgot items they had seized from Dube.
Meanwhile, they proceeded to sell Dube’s Samsung S20 mobile phone with Mutasa naively providing his accurate identity details to the buyer.
They then used the money to finance their binge drinking.
At around 2AM the next morning, Hara was arrested for a different charge and was detained until August 23 and on her release, she fled to Harare.
When the body was finally discovered, Mutasa took his own life by hanging.
Dube’s body was discovered some 15 mitres from a road in Emganwini.
It was found lodged between the front and back seats.
The back seat was tilted forward while the front seats were tilted backwards in apparent attempts to hide the body which was found in an advanced stage of decomposition.
In committing the crime, the pair left a lot of incriminating evidence.
They were also given away by the details they left with the buyer of Dube’s phone.
When High Court judge Christopher Dube-Banda handed down the 25-year-jail sentence, Hara looked hardly bothered by the lengthy term.
Dube’s relatives who were part of the gallery looked relieved by the sentence; some broke into tears.
Speaking to source after court adjourned, Dube’s aunt said while they were content with the sentence, no punishment however punitive was going to restore her niece’s life.
She said Mutasa’s family had reached out asking forgiveness and paying 14 cows while the Hara family seemed reluctant to come forward with some compensation.
“I am content with the sentence, but we are left with a big void, nothing can replace life,” she said.
“The Mutasa family has tried to reach out to us and has been forthcoming.
“They have managed to pay 14 cows to our family, but Hara’s family has not genuinely done so.”
Hara was represented by Tanaka Rungana from Tanaka Law Chambers.
Source ZimLive
