Nyore Madzianike Senior Court Reporter
CCC members Joana Mamombe and Cecilia Chimbiri have requested the court to allow them two days to go through three CCTV footage that was recorded at businesses surrounding the fast food outlet where they are said to have bought food on the late afternoon of the day they alleged to have been abducted by the police.
Mamombe and Chimbiri had been earlier afforded a chance to visit the CID Cyber Unit to view the videos but returned to court saying they had not finished and needed more time.
Through their lawyers Mr Alec Muchadehama and Mr Jeremiah Bamu, Mamombe and Chimbiri said they have realised that the videos were each one hour-long and needed more time to view the videos.
Mr Muchadehama also told the court that when they initially visited the CID department, they had only viewed portions of footage from Zuva Service Station and Chicken Inn and could not view the one extracted from Bon Marche Supermarket.
“The actual downloads are approximately one hour long each.
“We needed three hours to view them all. We needed to view the whole footage, but we had to go to the relevant portion which the police were interested in and because of time constraints we failed to complete,” he said.
Mr Muchadehama said they had a flash disc and they requested the police to download the footage, but to no avail.
He said the police told them that it takes a long time and since they had to return to court in time, they left without downloading them.
“It is not about videos only, but we wanted to see the videos from the original DVRs from Bon Marche.
“We request that they be given full 48 hours to deal with the videos,” he said.
The State led by Mr Michael Reza opposed the application for more time to view the footage by the two CCC members saying there was no need to view the whole hour-long videos, as they were only interested in 30 minutes of each footage.
“For purposes of this trial, we are interested in times from 1645hrs to 1715hrs.
“It is that time we are saying that they be allowed to go and view the remaining video for the time mentioned and then we resume court at 1415hrs (yesterday).
“There is no reason why they want to view times which are irrelevant to these proceedings.
“We said these are times of interest,” he said.
Mr Reza said there was no need for Mamombe and Chimbiri’s lawyers to be worried about watching the whole videos, as they will be afforded the opportunity to cross-examine the witnesses who installed the CCTVs.
“It is the right of the accused to cross-examine witnesses extensively and they will be given that opportunity.
“We will lead witnesses on times that they were at Belgravia,” he said.
Mr Reza accused Mamombe and Chimbiri’s lawyers of failing to approach the State in time to get the videos, knowing that they wanted to view them.
Chief Magistrate Mrs Faith Mushure ruled in the CCC members’ favour and allowed them the time they requested to watch the footage.
Mrs Mushure deferred the matter to June 29 for trial continuation.
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