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Diesel conjurer convicted of fraud for fooling Mugabe's government
Published in Saudi Press Agency on 27 - 07 - 2009


A medicine woman who conned President Robert
Mugabe's government out of about 1 million US dollars by bamboozling
ministers into believing she could tap diesel fuel from a rock, was
convicted of fraud at the weekend, state media reported Monday, according to dpa.
Rotina Mavhunga, who goes by the alias of Nomatter Tagirira, found
an abandoned fuel tank in the bush near the northern town of Chinhoyi
in March 2007.
She filled it with diesel, attached a pipe to the outlet and
concealed it at the top of a rock, the Chinhoyi magistrate's court
heard.
She then summoned top government official to witness her
"discovery." At a signal, a hidden accomplice would open the tap on
the pipe and the officials would gasp in amazement as refined diesel
poured down the side of the rock.
A cabinet "task force" dispatched by Mugabe to investigate the
claim returned to declare that Zimbabwe's persistent fuel shortages
were at an end. Government officials and businessmen lavished money
and vehicles on the medium until several months later, when a second
group of ministers began to express doubt about the woman's bona
fides.
Judge Ignatius Mugova found Mavhunga guilty of defrauding the
government of 500 billion dollars in the now disused Zimbabwean
dollar, the equivalent of about 1 million US dollars, and of
"misrepresenting to a public official" that she could conjure diesel
from a stone, the state-controlled Herald daily reported.
The magistrate also named one of the country's most powerful civil
servants, registrar-general Tobaiwa Mudede, as "an interested party"
in the fraud.
Mudede, who has run the country's elections since 2000, had
supplied 125 litres of diesel, which the mystic poured down the rock,
the judge revealed. When Mavhunga went on the run from police, she
was hidden and fed by Mudede, Mugova said.
While finding his behaviour was "disturbing" the judge said he was
not convinced Mudede was acting out of self-interest.
Many people who visited Mavhunga's "shrine" were "gullible" and
were clearly "frightened" of her alleged spiritual power, referring
to reports that members of the investigating cabinet task force took
off their shoes in her presence.
During the trial, Mavhunga would start growling in the dock before
the terror-stricken public gallery, but the magistrate said she had
been faking a trance to try and have herself declared unfit for
trial.
Her conviction was passed "in absentia", as she had repeatedly
failed to turn up after being served the summons, and was believed to
be in hiding, the Herald said. Sentencing is expected later in the
week.


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