Blessing Mukweni, a Zimbabwean facing charges of having allegedly shot dead Daniel Moilwa, a Directorate of Intelligence and Security Services officer, has asked Broadhurst Court Magistrate Imafon Akpabio to order the prosecution to provide him with all state witnesses’ statements as well as finger prints on all the guns that were used at the place he is alleged to have committed the offence of killing Moilwa.
The soft-spoken Zimbabwean said that it was his constitutional right to have all the statements as well as the finger prints in order to prepare his defence.
He also told the Court that he would like to call a private finger-print analyst from the United States of America’s famed Federal Bureau of Investigations to help him analyse the exhibits the state intends to use in the case.
However, the Magistrate responded by saying that such evidence as finger prints could only be given to him after he had been committed for a trial.
The Court was informed that the State had obtained ballistics evidence and that it would be ready to present it in Court in 14 days.
The Zimbabwean had also blamed Criminal Investigations Department officers who escorted him to Court for harassing him. According to him, they even prevented him from talking to his friends after arriving at the Court. He asked the Magistrate to call the officers and reprimand them but the Magistrate did not oblige to this request. Mukweni, who is denying the charges and claiming that the dead officer was shot by a female DISS officer, was remanded in custody.
Outside the Court, he was overheard passing jokes with uniformed police officers who were guarding him and seemed to be enjoying every minute of the discussions he had with them. Both his legs and hands were in cuffs but he seemed not to care a bit about that.
Mukweni is alleged to have shot Moilwa dead in November 2008 in Gaborone.
He joins a handful of other Zimbabweans facing murder charges in Botswana.
Moilwa is the first DISS officer to be killed in the line of duty. The Directorate has, on the other hand, been accused of the torture of some people, amongst them some soldiers who were allegedly tortured for a missing gun that was later found in the armory. They are also accused of shooting and injuring a young man on his way to work in Phakalane.
