Zimbabwe’s former finance minister Chris Kuruneri, facing charges of funnelling funds abroad to buy a mansion in South Africa, was on Thursday convicted of breaching citizenship laws by holding dual nationality.
The high-profile trial opened in the Harare high court Thursday, with Kuruneri denying charges of exporting foreign currency to buy a mansion in a Cape Town suburb and buy a luxury car in South Africa.
Kuruneri faces seven counts of breaching Zimbabwe’s exchange control laws by allegedly transferring US$500 000, 37 000 pounds, 30 000 euros and R1,2-million South African rand to buy and renovate an eight-bedroomed mansion.
The former minister denied the charge, saying he built the house with proceeds from consultancy work he did outside Zimbabwe before he was appointed minister.
Judge Susan Mavangira on Thursday convicted Kuruneri on his own plea after he confessed to holding a Canadian passport in addition to a Zimbabwean diplomatic passport.
Zimbabwean law does not allow dual citizenship. The judge was due to sentence Kuruneri for flouting citizenship laws at the end of his trial.
Kuruneri on Thursday denied charges of smuggling foreign currency to South Africa on various occasions between March 2002 and March 2004 and said the R5,2-million he had transferred to South Africa was ”supervised by Dr Gideon Gono who was then Chief Executive Officer of Commercial Bank of Zimbabwe (CBZ) at his own instance.”
Gono is now governor of Zimbabwe’s central bank and a current favourite of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe.
Kuruneri also argued that the Cape Town house was bought by a South African company, Choice Decisions, of which he was director.
”The house was purchased by Choice Decisions. Choice Decisions is not Zimbabwean … and therefore does not need the authority of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe to enter into any transaction in South Africa,” the defence said in its documents to the court.
The court heard testimonies of four South Africans, including two lawyers, involved in the sale of the Cape Town house.
The high court on Wednesday dismissed an application by defence lawyers that the state’s charge sheet did not outline any offence and that the court should throw out the case.
Twenty witnesses, including 11 South Africans and Zimbabwe’s central bank governor Gono, are lined up to testify against the former finance minister.
Kuruneri was arrested in April last year at the height of the Zimbabwean government’s anti-graft crusade, becoming the senior most official to face charges of corruption. He has been in remand prison since.
The trial was to continue on Friday with testimonies from prosecution witnesses. – Sapa-AFP