Yesterday’s proceedings in the trial of activist Sybeth Musengezi, who is accused of illegally entering ZANU PF party structures, resumed as his attorney attempted to persuade the court to dismiss the testimony of the State witness, which they referred to as “hearsay.”

The first witness the State called was Cde Godwills Masimirembwa, the Zanu PF provincial chairperson for Harare, who described how they learned that Musengezi was not a party member.

He claimed that after looking into the cell registration, the group learned that Musengezi had used two different locations, neither of which he actually lived at or paid any visits to.

Mr. Nqobani Sithole, a legal representative for Musengezi, and Doug Coltart filed a request to have his main testimony struck from the record, claiming that it was founded on false information.

“The accused name does not appear in Zanu PF 2020 cell registers and neither do we have a record of him applying to become a member of Zanu PF in 2020.

“In 2023, we again as Zanu PF carried out cell registration exercise through the country including Hatcliffe again the accused name does not appear anywhere in Harare province current cell registers indicating that he is not a member of the party,” he said.

Masimirembwa told the court during cross examination that investigations to look into Musengezi’s records was as a result of his application at the High Court challenging how President Mnangagwa ascended to power.

“He challenged the President on how he ascended into power. I read the article in the newspapers and was engaged by the Zanu PF team to check who this person was.

“This is because all party members are guided by the ZANU PF constitution and if anyone has grievances within the party there is internal grievances procedure to be followed and that was never done,” he said.

Musengezi’s lawyers then tried to disregard Masimirembwa’s evidence stating that there was no document before the court containing a resolution that he was assigned to represent the party in this matter.

Masimirembwa reinforced that automatically by his position as chairman he was entitled to represent the party and if need be to tender a resolution from the party it could be tendered.

The cross examination is expected to continue on June 13.-state media