The Sunday News
Vincent Gono in Matobo
A notorious Matobo cross border alleged stock thief who was on the police wanted list was arrested by a group of villagers while sharing the same blanket with his daughter in the bush allegedly as part of his arrest evasion juju.
On the latest alleged offence he had stolen 62 goats from a fellow villager. It also emerged that he had built goat and cattle pens in the thicket away from the communities using rolls of stolen fence from Botswana where he would take the stolen stock for keeps before loading them into trucks to various destinations.
The man – Khona Moyo of Beula area under Chief Malaba who had allegedly gained notoriety with a spate of cross border stock theft cases involving goats and cattle in Botswana and Zimbabwe and his police evasion antics is alleged to have made some startling revelations about some murder cases that he committed and an alleged police connivance.
He, however, led the villagers on a wild goose chase when he went with them to some cave in a mountain where he claimed he disposed the body of one murder victim where they found bones that police said were not human remains.
Police spokesperson for Matabeleland South Chief Inspector Philisani Ndebele confirmed the arrest of Moyo who he said was on the police wanted list. He, however, dismissed the findings of what villagers believed to be human bones in a cave they were led by Khona saying they were in fact animal remains.
“It is true that Khona Moyo was arrested. He was on the police wanted list for some time and we are hopeful that his arrest is going to solve some of the cases that we were dealing with,” said Chief Insp Ndebele.
He, however, couldn’t be led into divulging more details about the cases that he was arrested for saying the accused was now before the courts making much of the details beyond his professional parameters.
He, however, cleared the air on allegations that Khona led the villagers to a mountain called Ntabazamabhunu where remains of a person he killed were found.
“The allegations that he murdered a person and hid the remains in a cave are not true. They are a fallacy. In fact the bones that were found were animal bones and not human remains,” said the police spokesperson.
On the reports of police connivance and the general mistrust of the Sun Yet Sen police by the communities, he said all those were being looked into especially now that the accused was under police custody.
The triumphal arrest of Khona was led by Ward 5 councillor Madalabhoyi Ndebele who told Sunday News during a visit to the area that is a few kilometres from the Zimbabwe-Botswana border line that his arrest was expected to solve a number of stock theft cases and give the villagers some relief.
He said the villagers laid an ambush after he had stolen 62 goats from the Mahlangu homestead and drove them to his pens in the bush from where they were loaded onto a truck and taken to a plot at Number 43, Douglasdale in Bulawayo.
According to the owner of the goats, Mr Mthandazo Mahlangu, who was also one of the villagers who effected citizen arrest on Khona, out of the 62 goats, only seven were recovered. He said some of the goats left kids that later died.
“He drove the goats from the pastures not very far away from the homestead to a mountain where he had built goat and cattle pens. We are not sure, however, of the connection with the owner of the plot where we found the goats. We went there with police officers from Hillside and recovered seven goats,” said Mr Mahlangu.
Clr Ndebele said Khona tried to run away leaving his daughter in the bush but could not outpace the villagers who were all determined to get him arrested. Upon arrest, he said they discovered that he had some juju around parts of his body.
“We asked him a lot of questions and one shocking revelation apart from that he had killed one guy and another who had eloped with his wife to Botswana when he was arrested is that he was allegedly working with three police officers at Sun Yet Sen. We believe it is true because this guy was never really arrested despite he being a known stock thief,” said Clr Ndebele.
