Monday, December 11, 2023

Woman to be extradited to face murder charges in Zimbabwe

The Directorate of Public Prosecutions is working around the clock to ensure that Zimbabwean national, Elena Tembure, is extradited back to her home country to face murder charges.

The head of the Directorate of Public Prosecutions in Francistown, Antoinette Kula, said last week that they are preparing to reinstate the extradition case against Tembure, who is wanted by the Zimbabwean police in connection with the murder of two people in 2007.

According to Kula, a court in Francistown has in the past ruled in their favour that the woman should be extradited to Zimbabwe to stand trial. But after the ruling, Tembure asked to be allowed to go back to her home country on her own. She has since failed to do that, and the DPP is now considering reinstating the case against her to make sure that she goes to Zimbabwe to stand trial.

Tembure was initially kept at the Francistown centre for illegal immigrants, but she is currently reported to be in Gaborone.

Her extradition trial had a lot of hiccups when it began, primarily due to failure by the Zimbabwean authorities to provide valid reasons why they want her to be extradited back to Zimbabwe. At one stage the trial nearly collapsed because of lack of evidence that the DPP wanted in order to continue with the trial.

Zimbabwean authorities had asked that she be extradited back to Zimbabwe.

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