The ManicaPost
Tendai Gukutikwa
Post Correspondent
A CHIPINGE man who hacked his uncle to death using a machete has been spared jail due to the state of his mental health.
Tariro Sithole of Maturura Village under Chief Mutema in Chipinge will finally taste freedom after languishing in remand prison for five years.
Mutare High Court Judge, Justice Isaac Muzenda on Tuesday gave Tariro a not guilty verdict after tests by various medical practitioners concluded that he was a mental patient.
Sithole was being charged with murder as defined in Section 47 (a) or (b) of the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act, Chapter 9:23.
Principal law officer, Mr Malvern Musarurwa, represented the State.
The court heard that Tariro was a nephew to the late Mavhaiso Sithole.
Testifying in court, the late Sithole’s daughter, Chikonzero Sithole, said on the day of his father’s death, she was in the kitchen when Tariro slapped her on her right cheek thrice.
She ran and informed her father of what had happened.
Armed with a machete, Tariro followed.
He picked some bricks and hurled them at the late Sithole who by now had taken to his heels.
Chikonzero dashed to seek a neighbour so that they could assist her to stop Tariro from attacking her father.
However, Tariro caught up with Sithole and attacked him with a machete.
When a neighbour, Alice Biyeni arrived at the scene, he saw Tariro holding a blood-stained machete.
“Biyeni left to seek for assistance from other villagers,” testified Chikonzero.
She said her father had injuries on the neck, throat, left cheek and head.
A post mortem done by Dr Maxwell Chimhina at Victoria Chitepo Provincial Hospital said the cause of death was hypovolemic shock secondary to assault.
