Armed robbers raid Kwekwe family. . . Get away with $20 000 and 1kg gold

23 Aug, 2015 - 04:08 0 Views

The Sunday News

Richard Muponde Sunday News Correspondent.
A KWEKWE family recently escaped death by a whisker after a gang of armed robbers stormed their house in the wee hours of the morning, fired gunshots and struck one of them with a machete on the head before escaping with $20 000 in cash and over a kilogramme of pure gold in the process. This came to light last week during the appearance of three men, who were part of an 11-member gang of armed robbers, before Gokwe regional magistrate Mr Amos Mubobo facing charges of unlawful entry and armed robbery.
Moore Jakwana of 8233 Cold Comfort in Harare, Naison Rusere of 70A Kahuni, Rimuka in Kadoma, and Albert Mukwende of Chitaka Primary School in Makonde pleaded not guilty to the charges but were convicted after a full trial.
They were each sentenced to two years and 10 years in prison for unlawful entry and armed robbery.

One year was conditionally suspended for five years for each of them.
Prosecutor Mr Richard Ndlala told the court that the gang of armed robbers went to house Number 503, West End in Kwekwe looking for the owner of the house pretending to be selling gold, when instead they were carrying out surveillance of the security system at the house.
Three days later, they came back to the house at around 2am and created a hole in the precast wall to gain entry.
While inside the yard they forcibly opened the house’s kitchen door with an iron bar.

They then stormed into one of the spare bedrooms armed with a Norinco pistol and machetes where they found Emilda Chihwendere, Nancy Paradza, Phynes Ramba and three children asleep.
Rusere struck Paradza on the head with a machete demanding cash, while threatening to kill her.

Jakwana fired a shot through the roof.
When the other two were busy terrorising these complainants, Mukwende stormed the main bedroom where he woke up the owner of the house demanding cash.
Fearing for his life, the owner of the house surrendered $20 000 cash and 1 105 grammes of processed gold which was in the wardrobe.
After the robbery, they escaped from the scene, leaving Paradza in a pool of blood battling for dear life.
The matter was reported to the police and the injured were taken to hospital for treatment.

Police investigations led to the arrest of the three including Thomas Mhlanga, Mduduzi Mlilo, Simbarashe Mawaya and Tendai Mavisire who were later acquitted due to lack of evidence.
However, four of their other accomplices, Austin Banda, Tinashe Maramba, Kanizani Makiyi and Martin Chiwawa are still at large.

On their arrest the police recovered three vehicles which had been bought using proceeds from the armed robbery.

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