Police shooting victim awarded US$7,000 in restitution by High Court

HARARE – A taxi driver who was shot by a trigger-happy cop has been awarded US$7,000 in damages by the High Court after suing home affairs minister Kazembe Kazembe and police commissioner-general Godwin Matanga.

Matthew Mundwa was shot in the leg one May night in 2018 by Constable Kelvin Madzima while driving to Bluffhill suburb in Harare to drop off a client.

Justifying his callous actions, Madzima argued in court that he shot Mundwa because he had failed to stop at a police checkpoint.

But Mundwa’s attorney Tinashe Chinopfukutwa of the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) explained that his client did not stop because the officer did not identify himself and that he did not mount a formal roadblock, prompting the complainant to suspect that he was an armed robber.

Justice Webster Chinamora sided with Mundwa, ordering the police bosses and the shooter to pay up the restitution in U.S. dollars or local equivalent at the prevailing official rate, according to ZLHR spokesman Kumbirai Mafunda.

The ZLHR celebrated Mundwa’s court victory on Monday tweeting that “our efforts to deter acts of human rights violations through anti-impunity litigation against perpetrators are yielding results as Constable Kelvin Madzima and ZRP have been ordered to pay US$7,000 to Mathew Mundwa, a taxi driver, who was shot in 2018.”

Zimlive