A TOP Central Intelligence Organisation officer was beginning a 12-year prison sentence last night after admitting armed robbery along with three other men, including a bent police officer.
Robson Talkmore Mapurisa, 35, the deputy CIO chief for Matabeleland South, was the mastermind of the January 4 robbery in which a Gwanda gold miner was robbed of R90,000, 2kg of gold, four rings and a gold necklace with a combined value of R498,000.
Mapurisa was arraigned along with his brother, ex-CIO Herbert Mapurisa, 37, Constable Admire Chihambakwe, 28, and a fourth man, Timothy Machemedze, 38.
They all entered not guilty pleas, but later altered their pleas to soften their sentences before Western Division Regional Magistrate Owen Tagu, sitting in Gwanda.
They will each serve 12 years in jail after two more years were conditionally suspended.
The court heard that on January 3, the four men went to Khayalethu Plot in Gwanda where they met John Dicey, who runs a small mining operation on the property.
Prosecuting, Johannes Tlou told the court that the men passed themselves off as police officers assigned to give small scale miners tips on how to protect themselves from armed robbers.
They told Dicey they would return a day later for “detailed discussions” on security.
But when they returned on January 4, they were armed with two pistols which they used to threaten Dicey before robbing him.
Detectives investigating the robbery got a tip-off from members of the public who implicated gate-away driver Herbert Mapurisa. He in turn shopped the three other men.