Paul Nyathi

Vice President Kembo Mohadi says that goverment has silently “dealt with” the person who detonated an explosive suspected to have been a grenade at White City Stadium in June 2018 in what was described as an assasination attempt on President Emmerson Mnangagwa at the finish of a ZANU PF campaign rally in Bulawayo.

Addressing government officials, among them Cabinet ministers, following a tour of infrastructure built under the Beitbridge Redevelopment Project, Mohadi said the “junta” would not be dislodged by “dogs barking at the rising moon”, in apparent reference to the media and opposition parties exposing the Zanu PF government’s inadequacies.

The blast killed two VVIP security aides, and seriously injured several government and Zanu PF officials.

He, however, could not name the culprit or disclose how government had dealt with him, raising speculation that the State might have applied extra-judicial punishment on the suspected assassin.

At least 45 people including Mohadi, Defence minister Oppah Muchinguri-Kashiri, former Zanu PF national commissar Engelbert Rugeje, Vice-President Constantino Chiwenga’s estranged wife, Marry, to name a few, were injured in the explosion, widely believed to have been targeted at Mnangagwa.

The incident occurred when political tempers were still high in Zanu PF following the ouster of the now late former President Robert Mugabe in a November 2017 military coup.

“I know people are asking when that person will be arrested. We are not interested in that. He has been dealt with and he will never be able to do that again. We are not going to arrest him. He is not going to do it again,” Mohadi said.

After the blast, police interviewed witnesses, a number of whom reported that they saw a man throw an object at the stage.

Police described the suspect as a young male “between the ages of 23 and 25”, about 1.7 meters tall and of dark complexion, who was wearing a yellow ZANU–PF T-shirt at the time of the attack.

Witnesses told police that the man lobbed an item towards the stage from about 30 to 35 meters away, but the item missed its target after hitting a rope and then bouncing off a security officer’s cheek before landing and detonating.

The suspect was allegedly “fiddling around” with the object before throwing it. After the blast, police and military went after him, but witnesses said they saw soldiers get to him first and arrest him, police reported.

The suspect has never been seen since the military apprehended him in the townships outside White City Stadium.

Two other suspects, residents of Bulawayo’s Pumula suburb were also picked up by the police and appeared before a magistrate at the Tredgold Magistrates’ Court in Bulawayo to answer charges regarding the bombing.

The suspects were identified as John Zulu and Douglas Musekiwa, and it was clear that none of these men was the suspect arrested by the military the day of the attack.

Zulu and Musekiwa were later released without charges.

In the latest reports on the incident, a soldier who claimed to have carried out the bombing while trying to impress a girlfriend was jailed for 12 years.

Tendai Saunyama Kandima, who worked for Military Intelligence, was convicted of making statements prejudicial to the state by the General Court Martial.

Kandima had no lawyer during his trial. Harare lawyer Innocent Gonese – instructed by the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights – has taken up his case aiming to secure his release to enable him to undergo urgent treatment for a heart ailment.