Zanu PF acting spokesperson, Patrick Chinamasa yesterday justified the catch and release phenomenon that has characterized arrests by the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC) for lack of evidence adding that cases of graft are the toughest to prosecute.
Chinamasa made the remarks in an interview on ZiFM last night where he stressed that his term as Attorney General brought him to understand the complexity of corruption crimes.
“Speaking as an Attorney General, I will say corruption crimes are the most difficult to prosecute and detect. This is because the briber and the bribed benefit, as a result, none among these two will report the other. To detect it you need whistleblowers with strong evidence, not just malicious information,” said Chinamasa.
He added that failure to investigate before arresting by law enforcement agents has resulted in the catch and release phenomenon in the case of recent examples of former cabinet ministers Prisca Mupfumira and Ignatius Chombo, among other prominent figures.
Corruption has become endemic in Zimbabwean society and more so in the public sector where huge sums of money have been misappropriated in recent years at the expense of national development.
“We had some youths who pointed out that so and so is corrupt but up to now they have not gone to ZACC to give the evidence. On the basis of that information, attained on social media, people were arrested, Minister Mupfumira and many others. Social media does not come into court, you can’t prosecute on the basis of what is paddled on social media.
“In my view, the mistake law enforcement agents make is to arrest on the basis of social media falsehoods or arrest on the basis of information given maliciously without investigating first. This is what leads to the catch and release phenomenon,” said Chinamasa.
Since its restructuring last year, the anti-graft organisation have come under immense pressure to nab corrupt top officials at a time the President is on record bemoaning the scourge of corruption in government.
But due to the complexity of the crimes, lack of evidence in courts has seen the bigwigs go scot-free.
