THE fraud trial of four Harare men accused of allegedly defrauding Walter Magaya’s Prophetic Healing and Deliverance (PHD) Ministries of $116 000 in a botched car import deal, failed to continue yesterday as the suspects’ lawyer is hospitalised.
Businessman Upenyu Mashangwa and his co-accused Cosmas Mushaninga, Kudakwashe Larry Mapfumo and Clifford Tinashe Gonde are facing an alternative charge of smuggling and failure to pay duty for a Land Rover Discovery 4 vehicle they imported from South Africa in 2014 on behalf of PHD Ministries.
Prosecutor Michael Reza told the court that Mashangwa’s lawyer Tafadzwa Hungwe was ill. The other suspects’ lawyers Dumisani Mthombeni, Sylvester Maruza and Anesu Bangidza were also not present in court.
Presiding magistrate Noel Mupeiwa remanded the matter to April 25.
This is the fourth time that the trial has been postponed since January.-Newsday