Zanu PF activist Pius Jamba Mukandi, who was arrested in June last year on allegations of murdering opposition Citizens Coalition for Change activist Moreblessing Ali and was found guilty by the High Court, was today sentenced to 30 years in prison.
Ali’s mutilated remains were found in a disused well in rural Nyatsime.
Her death sparked violent clashes between Zanu PF and CCC supporters and the subsequent arrest of senior CCC official and her lawyer, Job Sikhala, who has spent one and half years in remand prison for allegedly inciting violence.
Ali’s remains are at Chitungwiza Hospital mortuary.
Human rights lawyer and CCC former parliamentarian Kucaca Phulu says the jail term indicates that there were some issues that the High Court judge took into account when he sentenced him to 30 years in prison.
Zanu PF activist and former parliamentarian Malaki Nkomo says Mukandi’s sentence is an indiction that court are independent entities and not appendages of Zanu PF and President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government.