Lawyers for Zimbabwe’s former finance minister asked the high court on Tuesday to throw out the charges against Chris Kuruneri of funnelling foreign currency to build a mansion in neighbouring South Africa.
Leading the defence team, advocate Julia Wood told the court the state’s charge sheet was vaguely drafted and did not disclose any offence.
”The charges are mere speculation,” Woods told high court judge Susan Mavangira. ”The indictment does not say how the offences were committed, where, the dates and what amounts were involved on each of the ocassions.”
Kuruneri was arrested in April last year at the height of the Zimbabwean government’s anti-graft crusade, becoming the highest-level official to face charges for corruption. He has been in remand prison since.
The former minister in President Robert Mugabe’s ”war cabinet” is facing seven counts of breaching Zimbabwe’s exchange control laws for allegedly transfering abroad US$500 000, 37 000 British pounds, 30 000 euros and R1,2-million that covered the cost of building an eight-bedroomed mansion in a Cape
Town surbub.
The court on Tuesday allowed the prosecution to amend two of the charges by inserting the phrase ”at some dates to the prosecutor unknown”.
But the defence said even with the amended charges the state had failed to disclose an offence.
Wood cited among the vague charges the allegation that Kuruneri asked the Commercial Bank of Zimbabwe (CBZ) to transfer R5,2-million from his foreign currency account to the account of a South
African company in April 2002.
The charges effectively implicated Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Governor Gideon Gono and an official with a local commercial bank, the lawyer said.
”The state is alleging Dr Gono and Mr Oliver Sigauke were accomplices because they are the people who authorised the transfers,” Wood said.
Kuruneri appeared in the high court on Tuesday dressed in a beige suit and light blue shirt.
The former minister denies charges of illegally exporting foreign currency, saying he built the mansion in a plush Cape Town suburb with proceeds from consultancy work he did for foreign companies before he was appointed minister by Mugabe.
He is also facing a charge under Zimbabwe’s Citizenship Act for holding a Canadian passport in addition to his Zimbabwean diplomatic passport. Zimbabwean law does not allow dual citizenship.
The judge will make a ruling Wednesday on the application to have charges against him quashed. – Sapa-AFP