Former police boss Augustine Chihuri has accused President Emmerson Mnangagwa of hounding him to settle scores after they clashed over a woman.
Chihuri, who is on the verge of losing his sprawling business empire and properties to the state after allegations that he amassed the wealth through corrupt means, made the allegations in an affidavit filed at the High Court on Friday.
The ex-police commissioner-general wants the court to set aside the unexplained wealth order it issued against him on June 20.
Chihuri said he was being persecuted because of his strained relationship with Mnangagwa dating back to the liberation struggle where the president allegedly snatched his then pregnant wife.
Justice Felistas Chatukuta granted an application by prosecutor-general Kumbirai Hodzi for an order forcing Chihuri and his wife, Isobel Halima Khan, to explain how they acquired their properties as part of a process to seize them.
Chihuri is accused of syphoning US$32 million in public funds.
The long-serving ex-top cop, however, said the allegation was part of a victimisation crusade by Mnangagwa that intensified after the 2017 coup.
He narrated how Mnangagwa allegedly snatched his then wife before vowing to make his life “hell” as long as he lived.
Chihuri said his problems started when he got married the “Zanu way” in Chimoio in Mozambique before the then political commissar, Mayor Urimbo (late), around 1976 and the following year, his wife became pregnant.
“The current president of Zimbabwe, Mr Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa, was aware of this union and pregnancy. Using his position, my then wife was transferred to Shai Shai in Mozambique where Mr Mnangagwa had a forced affair with her as she alleged,” he wrote in the affidavit.
“I tried to terminate the marriage, but the political commissar threatened me not to dare to do it, citing that Mr Mnangagwa [as he then was] is a dangerous man and would behead me as he was not hesitant to kill.”
Chihuri said Urimbo told him: “Do not gamble with your life, dear comrade.”
“From then my relationship with the president of Zimbabwe worsened. He went on to suggest that my then wife terminate the pregnancy,” he said.
“God was on my side, it was tried and it failed … Cde Serbia warned me again to keep quiet or else I would perish and never see the light of day.”
Chihuri said the November 2017 coup saw the intensification of the onslaught by Mnangagwa after he refused to turn against the late president Robert Mugabe and join the coup plotters. He was forced to retire a month after the coup.
He alleged that in December 2017, his successor Godwin Matanga instructed a police constable to shoot him and burn his Greystone Park house.
“My family home was burnt beyond recognition,” he said.
“The fire was started in my home office burning all files, records, 15 Bibles, etc were destroyed.
“To make sure that the records and files were destroyed, he took a 20-litre diesel container and another container with oil.
“He sprayed both in the office, the main bedroom as the major target and so he did the rest of the house except the guest wing.”
Chihuri accuses Matanga of doing Mnangagwa’s bidding by pursuing criminal cases against him.
Chihuri alleged Matanga is harassing his family, relatives and workers, threatening and beating his workers at gunpoint.
“The harassment was made worse when my young children would be threatened by police with guns to produce their father and said that they had been sent by Matanga,” he claimed.
Chihuri alleged Matanga was using “all tactics” to persecute him as a result of his “incompetence, which is due to lack of education”.
He claimed the police boss does not have O’Level qualifications.
“He is doing all that he can in order to secure his post,” Chihuri claimed.
“He does not even hold an O’ Level certificate, which is a basic requirement for a constable to join the police.” Abridged from The Standard
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