WITNESSES have given conflicting evidence regarding the alleged presence of a passenger in Rtd General Solomon Mujuru’s car as he returned to his Beatrice farmhouse on the fateful August night he would be killed in an, as yet, unexplained blaze.

An inquest into the death of the late independence war hero and Zanu PF power broker opened at the Harare Magistrates Court on Monday with his family keen for answers amid speculation the powerful general may have been murdered.

Clemence Runhare, a security guard manning the outer gate to the farm on that August 15 night, told the hearing that the General was accompanied by someone he assumed, at the time, to be his driver. Officials have claimed Mujuru was alone at the farm on the night of the tragedy.

Runhare maintained, throughout questioning by prosecutors and the Mujuru family lawyer, Thakor Kewada of Scanlen and Holderness, that even though visibility was limited due to a power cut, he had seen another individual sitting beside the General in the vehicle.

But Augustinos Chinyoka, a police constable manning the inner gate leading to the house together with colleagues, Obert Mark and Lazarus Handikatari, contradicted Runhare’s testimony, insisting the general was alone in the vehicle.

Chinyoka said he only observed what appeared to be a suit jacket hanging in the back seat.

The court was told the two guard posts were only 200 metres apart meaning both witnesses would have had a clear view had the general stopped to let-off his alleged passenger. Still Chinyoka and Runhare stuck to their conflicting versions of the events.

Runhare also stunned the hearing when he said he heard what sounded like a gun shot around 12 midnight but assumed it could have come from poachers at a nearby farm. He added that when the fire broke out at around 2AM, he then concluded that the sounds he heard earlier could have been the asbestos exploding as they burned.

However, the ZRP witnesses again contradicted the security guard’s testimony insisting they had not heard the alleged gunshots.

Still, Mujuru’s paternal nephew, Tendai Mundawarara, who was in the gallery repeatedly asked Runhare whether “the noises could have been gun shots?” Mundawarara also told Runhare that it did not make sense to link the noises he heard at around 12AM to the fire, which started at 2AM.

Visibly distraught, Mundawarara added: “Can we then conclude that the sounds you heard were not from the fire but were gun shot sounds”, to which Runhare failed to give a plausible response.

Tempers also flared as Mujuru’s relatives rapidly fired off questions at the witnesses with the interpreter forced to intervene, at some point, and calm down his brother, Joel.

The family lawyer, Kewada, said the ZRP guards could have been sleeping insisting it did not make sense that they only saw the fire at an advanced stage when power supplies were restored around 9PM and the property would therefore have been in full sight.

He said had officers carried out their regular patrols as they claimed, they would have noticed the fire when it started and possibly reacted in time to rescue the General.

Vice President Joice Mujuru attended the hearing with her two daughters and remained composed throughout the proceedings.