Jennifer Dube
24 October 2009
Harare — AFTER retiring to bed with his family around 9.30pm, Moffat Nyandure (31), the caretaker at the MDC-T house that was raided by the police on Friday suddenly heard commotion outside the gate. "I went into the house (from the cottage where he stays) and ran upstairs to get a better view of what was happening," he said.
"That was when I saw a crowd walking up and down the road. I suspected they were thieves trying to steal bricks piled by the gate. I panicked when the people jumped into the yard and tiptoed along the driveway towards the house with guns aimed at it".
He met them outside as he tried to escape and one of them grabbed him by his trousers and dragged him into the house.
"I could not tell how many they were, but I remember we could not fit into the lounge where they identified themselves as police officers and gave me 'a search warrant' which was addressed to the residence occupier," Nyandure said.
The raiders took back the warrant, saying their boss had to sign it. Within moments, they had turned the house into a mess: clothes and papers all over, beds overturned, cushions removed from sofas, and one toilet sink broken.
"They searched everywhere including behind mirrors in the bathrooms and they broke one of the toilet sinks in the process. All the while they asked me where I hid guns."
There were black marks on one of the walls, which Nyandure said were made by three of the raiders as they got into the ceiling.
"They used an extension cord they brought to light a torch which they took up there with them", he said. "They asked if I wanted them to also move the carpet and I told them to do everything they thought would lead them to what they were looking for."
After searching the garage, bar and pantry, the raiders harassed Nyandure for not having keys to a safe they also wanted to search.
They left the house with a CV belonging to Artwell Sibanda, personal assistant to Speaker of Parliament Lovemore Moyo, he said. The raiders also took a calendar with names and phone numbers of MDC-T officials. They also took a diary, a book and two photographs of MDC-T organising secretary Morgan Komichi.
They went to the cottage where they slapped Nyandure's wife and her sister, before forcing him to dig in the yard and the garden.
"I recently dug in the garden to plant some vegetables and I had also planted some lawn in the yard," he said. "They asked why I decided to plant these this week and forced me to dig up everything.
"They also inspected the perimeter wall, the jacuzzi and the swimming pool before forcing me to get into some of the shrubs and flowers and come out with everything hidden there."
Nyandure said the raiders said MDC-T secretary general Tendai Biti, who is also the Minister of Finance, was wasting money buying "a beautiful house" which he was not living in.
At the swimming pool, they said Biti was wasting water while ordinary Zimbabweans were struggling without.
The raiders reportedly left around 2am in three Mitsubishi trucks.
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