A Harare couple walked free after three years of legal drama when a High Court judge tossed fraud charges that accused them of stealing ZW$137 million from ex-Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono. Clark Makoni and Beverly Aisha Ndonda claimed the whole prosecution was bogus and said Gono was trying to shake them down, but a regional magistrate originally refused to dismiss the case.
Justice Regis Dembure reversed that decision and said the charges were completely broken because prosecutors never actually laid out the basic elements of fraud. The defense lawyer called it a fishing expedition, and the judge agreed that the magistrate basically tried to rewrite the charges mid-trial to help the prosecution. The court can't invent new accusations just to keep a case alive, and doing that counted as a serious screw-up.
Justice Regis Dembure reversed that decision and said the charges were completely broken because prosecutors never actually laid out the basic elements of fraud. The defense lawyer called it a fishing expedition, and the judge agreed that the magistrate basically tried to rewrite the charges mid-trial to help the prosecution. The court can't invent new accusations just to keep a case alive, and doing that counted as a serious screw-up.
