Prison escapees plead guilty
Lebogang Mosikare | Wednesday June 14, 2017 17:34
The prisoners Mlindeni Moyo, Sicelo Sibanda, Rowland Moyo, Gaomodimo Molosiwa and Givemore Chaloba changed their previous pleas of not guilty to guilty before Magistrate Ishmael Molobe.
They followed in the footsteps of Mthokodzisi Sibanda and Goodwin Mapunganyika who recently pleaded guilty to the offence. Mapunganyika was recently sentenced to six months in jail for the offence while Sibanda is awaiting sentence on June 19.
Prosecutor Archie Makgoa yesterday told the court that Sibanda was a first offender.
The accused’s change of pleas surprised many people because all along they were adamant that one of the prison escapees, Charlotte Ndlovu, who later died, knew how and why they escaped from prison.
Molosiwa’s statement landed him in hot soup. Molosiwa said that since Ndlovu knew how they escaped from prison, their trial should be held at his graveyard so that he (Ndlovu) can be resurrected and tell the court how they escaped.
The case prosecutor at that time Atinah Mandigo applied for Molosiwa to receive strokes for making a mockery of the court and the entire legal system. Mandigo added that Molosiwa’s statement brought the name of the court into disrepute. Molobe subsequently agreed with the prosecution and sentenced Molosiwa to seven strokes for his distasteful utterances.
It was the second time that the court sentenced Molosiwa to seven strokes for bringing its name into disrepute.
Yesterday, Mlindeni told the court that he indeed escaped from lawful custody in January because the situation was by then inviting.
He said: “I didn’t willfully escape from jail. Circumstances forced me to escape from jail. What transpired is that one of my co-accused told me that there was a hole on the prison fence. He told me to join him in escaping. I hesitated for sometime because I didn’t trust him. He told me to remain behind if I didn’t want to escape”. Mlindeni said the person who invited him to escape then told him that they had paid prison warders to buy their escape from jail.
“After 30 minutes, I went to where I was directed in order to escape. When I got there, I found that indeed some inmates were escaping from prison. They were escaping in the presence of prison warders who were holding guns but surprisingly the prison officers did nothing to stop the jailbreak. I then also joined others who were escaping but I was arrested a few days later,” said Mlindeni.
At the end of the mention, Molobe made an order that the accused should come to court on June 19 for facts reading and mitigation.
He added that on that date Sibanda will receive his sentence. Meanwhile, the Directorate of Public Prosecutions (DPP) is still in the process of extraditing two men who are also charged with unlawfully escaping from the FCII. The men are currently languishing in a Zimbabwe prison where the prosecution says they are also facing some criminal charges. So far eight people charged with escaping from lawful custody are still at large. All the accused are facing serious charges ranging from armed robbery, murder and rape.
Of the people charged with the offence, Molosiwa and Chaloba are citizens of Botswana while the rest are from Zimbabwe.