Three police office were yesterday dragged to court to face criminal abuse of duty after they reportedly demanded US$4000 from an accused person whom they had arrested for dealing in illegal drugs.

The trio of Donlad Dube, Charles Ndumo and Innocent Madziya were not asked to plead when they appeared before Harare magistrate Judith Taruvinga.

The three are stationed at CID Braeside.

Allegations are that on October 8, between 7 and 8pm, the trio who were on duty received information that there was a truck loaded with BronCleer Cough Syrup.

The three acting on the information went to N Richards Truck stop and found a truck loaded with goods from South aAfrica nd identified the owner of the goods Philda Makumbe and amongst the goods were 60 boxes of BronCleer syrup.

They reportedly produced their police cards and indicated that they were following up on the information they had received and ordered Makumbe to load the boxes into a car that they had hired and was being driven by Webster Madzoko.

While at the scene they reportedly started demanding US$6 000 from Makumbe in the presence of her brother so that they release the boxes prompting Makumbe to send her brother to collect the money and he came back with US$4200.

The trio received the moenyin the presence of Bellah Mbizi her business partner and after receiving it they took out two boxes of Bron Cleer before handing over the rest to Makumbe.

Makumbe later made a police report and when the realised that they were being investigated they re-arrested her after the found her in possession of one box of the illegal substances.-H-Metro