THE grisly manner of General Solomon Mujuru’s death was again dredged up in court Friday when his gardener described how rescuers found his body engulfed in flames and had to use buckets of water to douse the fire.
There was a hushed silence in the courtroom as the General’s gardner, Tawanda Madondo related how Mujuru’s body was discovered still ablaze and rescuers needed more than one bucket of water to put the flames out.
Madondo was one of the five witnesses who gave evidence as the inquest into the mysterious death of the ex-army chief and independence war hero entered its fifth day .
Mujuru’s charred remains were discovered in one of the rooms after the main farmhouse at his Beatrice property was gutted by an, as yet, unexplained fire last August, prompting speculation that the influential Zanu PF power-broker may have been murdered.
Gardner, Madondo told the inquest that he had been woken up by a police officer at around 2:26 am and told to go to the farmhouse and show them the General’s bedroom.
He said it however, took them about an hour and a half to get to the gutted property. Mujuru’s maid, Rosemary Short, told the inquest early in the week that the workers compound is located some three kilometres away from the farmhouse.
“When we got to the farmhouse the bedroom was completely gutted by fire.” Madondo said adding that after a while one of the police officers announced that he had located the General’s body.
Madondo said they found the remains still on fire adding one of the officers had to use two buckets of water to put out the flames.
The Mujuru family’s lawyer, Thakor Kewada, again rapped the ZRP officers on duty that August 15 night, wondering why they would waste time running around looking for the gardener instead of smashing the windows of the house and trying to rescue the General.
“I put it across that instead of the police running around looking for the gardener, they could have broken all the windows and tried to locate the General” Kewada said.
“It was a complete waste of time on the part of the officer to walk around the compound for all that time that could have been used to try and find the General.”
Kewada blasted the ZRP officers for being negligent and non-committal in their duties.
Some of the officers admitted in their evidence that they had fallen asleep and only woke up when the whole house was ablaze and the fire too intense for them to try and rescue Mujuru.
Mujuru’s maid also testified that the General was so appalled by officers’ performance that he had contemplated dismissing them just days before his horrific death.
Four more witnesses testified on Friday but Kewada said their evidence was not very useful since their involvement in the events of that night was marginal.
The inquest was adjourned to the 24th of January when more witnesses are expected to give evidence.