Own Correspondent
Obadiah Moyo arrives in court in the company of detectives from the Anti Corruption Commission HEALTH Minister Obadiah Moyo, who was arrested by Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC) officers Friday night, is reported to have spent the same night at his home before coming to court the next day.
This was contrary to earlier reports he spent the night detained at Harare’s Rhodesville police station.
Obadiah-Moyo is Emmerson Mnangagwa’s cousin, a term called “uncle” or sekuru, in the Shona vernacular.
He is son to Mnangagwa’s mother’s brother.
When the police arrested him on Friday, while he was signing a warned and cautioned statement, they decided to release him on Mnangagwa’s orders. The head of the Central Intelligence Organisation, Isaac Moyo is another of his relatives who worked together with Justice Minister Ziyambi Ziyambi. They together went to Mnangagwa and organised that everything be staged so that he (Obadiah Moyo) is served so to subdue growing public angers over the Draxgate scandal. The plan was that Obadiah Moyo would sleep inside the police cells, and then bail be granted (and even that was cut short – he left Rhodesville Police station soon after arrival.)
The CIO Director General and Ziyambi then went to get Obadiah Moyo’s own muzukuru, cousin, Munamato Mutevedzi who is the acting Chief Magistrate. Mutevedzi was invited to come and sit on the same case and the case had the prosecutor saying that bail is not opposed.
Moyo was arrested Friday over a US$42 million scandal surrounding the illegal procurement of coronavirus drugs, test kits, and equipment.
The scandal has sucked in President Emmerson Mnangagwa through son, Collins, who however vehemently denies any involvement.
It emerged Saturday the “arrested” minister drove to the Harare Magistrates’ Court Saturday morning in style, in a convoy of four State-issued luxury vehicles, accompanied by aides and ZACC investigating officers.
Also accompanying the graft accused minister was his wife, Memory and a handful relatives.
MDC Alliance co-vice presidents Tendai Biti and Lynnette Karenyi were two weeks ago arrested and went through a hard time in the hands of the police.
Biti on his release said; “We were not provided blankets or mats on which to sleep. The toilets were stuffed with torn copies of The Herald, the state-owned newspaper, for which there is no better use. There was no water and we were forced to walk in filth without shoes.
“In our new holding room, other prisoners were present, including policeman Shungudzemoyo Kache, who had been charged with sedition for allegedly calling Mnangagwa ‘a used condom’.
“Most had been arrested for not wearing masks and hadn’t been able to pay the fines. Yet to heap irony on the ridiculous, there was no social distancing, temperature checks or sanitisers provided then or at any point that day.”
Moyo was granted a $50 000 bail by chief magistrate Munamato Mutevedzi. Surprisingly, the state did not oppose bail considering the seriousness of the offence.