Gono hired people to attack Kereke's driver court told

The feud between the governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) Gideon Gono and his former advisor Munyaradzi Kereke has turned nasty with the latter telling the court yesterday that the central bank governor hired people to attack his personal driver.

Kereke took to the witness stand as one of the key State witnesses in a case where two RBZ security officers, Phillip Dendere (47) and George Nyahuye (36), are being charged for disorderly conduct.

Kereke told magistrate Tendai Mahwe that Dendere, while in detention at Rhodesville Police Station, was heard saying words to the effect that the two were now paying for being Gono's henchmen.

"I want to say the two accused are my former juniors within the security division and in my view, they committed this offence as the acrimony between me and my former boss, Gideon Gono, intensified," Kereke said.

"On arrival at the police station, the two accused were behind the counter (inside the charge office) and accused one (Dendere) uttered the remarks which to me meant that Gono had sent them," he added.

The court heard that on March 12 this year, Kereke was being driven to the city centre by his personal driver Privilege Maturure when he realised he was being stalked by Dendere and Nyahuye for almost 30 minutes.

The State alleges Kereke then decided to drive back to his medical centre, Rock Foundation, but the two men continued to follow them. Kereke said his brother, Cletos, was also in the car with him at the time.

Dendere and Nyahuye allegedly continued to tail the trio until they got inside the medical centre where Maturure parked the vehicle.

After a short while, the RBZ security officers allegedly drove inside and parked their vehicle in front of the medical centre, blocking ambulances and other vehicles from entering the premises. It is alleged Dendere and Nyahuye then got out of their vehicle and attacked Maturure so severely he sustained serious injuries.

They were later restrained by a security guard at the medical centre.

In their defence, Dendere and Nyahuye denied the offence and told the court they acted on instructions from their bosses. They were allegedly ordered to track and identify where the RBZ vehicle, which Kereke took from the central bank, was being hidden.

They told the court that the police told them upon reporting the matter that they did not have adequate resources to search for the vehicle and requested them to assist locate it and report back to them.

That was when they saw the vehicle with Kereke and his driver before following it to the medical centre.

The matter was deferred to tomorrow after the defence made an application for an inspection in loco, arguing that they wanted to get a clear picture of how the vehicles were parked at Rock Foundation on the day in question.

Kereke will be cross-examined after the inspection. Dendere and Nyahuye made an unsuccessful application for the dismissal of the charges.

Magistrate Mahwe threw out the application.

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