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Lazy, partisan police stole two years of my life: Manjoro
Sofia Mapuranga, The Zimbabwean
October 01, 2013

http://www.thezimbabwean.co/news/zimbabwe/68667/lazy-partisan-police-stole-two.html

Cynthia Manjoro is a bitter woman with no kind words for Zimbabwe’s criminal justice delivery system, especially the police.

She believes the police officers tasked to investigate the murder of Inspector Petros Mutedza on May 29 2011 in Glen View, Harare, are partisan and says their conduct throughout this case should be probed.

“There is need to take them back to the police school and teach them all over again how to carry out their duties, if we are ever to have a professional, credible and trusted police force,” Manjoro told The Zimbabwean in an exclusive interview.

Citing her case as an example, she said to deny an innocent person freedom by using her as a bait to arrest another suspect is unacceptable. Manjoro was arrested to enable the police to track down her boyfriend, Darlington Madzonga – an abuse of the ZRP’s constitutional mandate.

“Someone, somewhere was too lazy to do their job and because the whole justice delivery system is not properly coordinated and full of corrupt individuals I ended up paying the price for a crime that I did not commit,” said Manjoro. “The whole ‘drama’ robbed me two years of my life.”

Manjoro put on hold her plans to pursue a Masters degree soon after her arrest in 2011. “I was due to start studying for my Masters in Developmental Studies at the National University of Science and Technology in 2011, but because of the forever pending court case, everything had been shelved,” she said.

Manjoro recalled the trauma of staying in prison under inhuman conditions and the painful experience when her four-year-old son rejected her when she was eventually released on bail in December 2012.

“Prison life was not easy, and initially, I cried daily until I realised that I had to live with what is there. I spent most of my time reading and I taught one woman who was up for murder. I heard later that she wrote her Grade 7 exams in prison,” she said.

“The conduct of the police robbed me two years of my son’s life. I missed his second birthday, his first day at pre-school and his first sports day.”

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