VICE President Joice Mujuru has asked to be “set free” as she launched an impassioned new plea for police to release their findings into her husband’s death probe.
Retired army commander General Solomon Mujuru died on August 15 in mystery blaze which ripped through his police-guarded farm residence in Beatrice.
A multi-department police probe into the investigation is complete, according to police chief Commissioner General Augustine Chihuri. But police have asked for an inquest instead – a judge-led investigation held in open court to test all the evidence and establish cause of death.
No date has been set for the inquest.
Speaking to farmers in Masvingo last Friday, Mujuru betrayed growing impatience with the legal system.
"I am still in the dark like you about how exactly my husband died,” Mujuru said. “I do not think that you expected him to go that way.
“We are now waiting for an explanation on his death so that we can be set free."
Mujuru has publicly raised her suspicions of foul play, stating that a decorated war veteran like her husband would have managed to escape an ordinary fire. Mujuru said a bedroom where he was found had large windows to the outside – fuelling rumours that he may have been incapacitated or already dead by the time the fire rapidly spread through the 14-room farmhouse.
Mujuru was given the title 'kingmaker' in Zimbabwean politics, as one of the alleged three centres of power within President Robert Mugabe's factional Zanu PF party. At the other end was Defence Minister Emerson Mnangagwa, with Mugabe holding the two camps together.