Two Zimbabwe Republic Police officers have been ordered to serve 14 days in detention after taking US$370 from the mother of a theft suspect and failing to secure his release.
Sergeant Talent Lazarus Tausen and Constable Edwin Dewa were convicted through internal police disciplinary proceedings and sentenced to detention at Chikurubi Maximum Prison. Their attempt to stop the punishment while challenging the outcome has now failed at the Mutare High Court.
The case began after Sydney Muchongoyo was arrested at an Inter Africa bus stop in Chisumbanje. He had been accused of stealing a passenger’s bag after alighting from the bus. During the events between 8 and 13 November 2025, the officers were accused of badly assaulting him before turning to his mother, Alice Chikumba, with a demand for money.
Chikumba was told that payment would secure her son’s release. She handed over US$370, but Muchongoyo was not released. After the officers failed to keep their side of the arrangement, Chikumba demanded her money back and reported the matter to their superiors.
The complaint led to internal proceedings against the two officers. The disciplinary trial accepted evidence against them and convicted them. They appealed to the Commissioner General of Police, but that appeal was dismissed.
The officers then turned to the High Court. They wanted the execution of the 14-day detention sentence suspended while they pursued a review of their convictions and punishment. Their argument was that once the sentence had been served, it could not be reversed if the review later succeeded.
They also challenged the evidence used against them. Their lawyers argued that witnesses relied upon by the police had vested interests and that the evidence supporting the bribery charge was insufficient. They further complained about the way the disciplinary proceedings had been conducted.
The State opposed the application. It argued that there was no valid review application before the court because it had been filed outside the time allowed by the High Court rules. The State also said the officers were presenting grounds of appeal under the name of a review and were using the urgent application to delay the sentence.
Justice Sijabuliso Siziba rejected the officers’ application, finding that the proposed review was defective and out of time. The disciplinary proceedings had ended on 13 January 2026, but the officers did not file their High Court application until after their police appeal was dismissed on 28 July. They approached the court on 31 July, more than 20 weeks after the proceedings had ended.
The High Court rules require a review application to be filed within eight weeks of the proceedings being challenged. The officers did not seek condonation for the delay. The judge also found that the application did not set out the grounds of review or the relief sought on its face, as required by Rule 62(2) of the High Court Rules.
“The present application for stay of execution by the applicants has no legs to stand as it is anchored upon a fatally defective application that can never ever succeed. The purported application for review has no grounds of review and no relief sought on the face of it in flagrant violation of High Court rules,” ruled Justice Siziba.
“The application for review which lies at the foundation of this urgent application is invalid because it is out of time and no condonation was sought. The grounds of review advanced by the applicants mainly attacked the trial proceedings that were terminated on January 13 2026. This is being done after the expiry of more than 20 weeks of the termination of such proceedings rules mandates that a review be filed within eight weeks of termination of proceedings which are the subject of the review,” ruled Justice Siziba.
The judge dismissed the urgent application with costs, leaving the 14-day detention sentence enforceable. The ruling means the officers could not use the pending challenge to delay the punishment imposed through the police disciplinary process.
The officers, Constables Prosper Muchangani, Shelton Masvande and Mercy Makarimai, had been deployed at Chinamhora Base. Investigators found that traffic fines had not been officially receipted, the money had not been declared before the officers began duty and there was no record of their deployment in the official register. They were convicted at the Harare Magistrates’ Court on 24 June 2026.
Another case in Harare involved traffic officer Pedzisai Nyamakura, who received a US$10 payment from a motorist stopped in the central business district. The motorist had been accused of crossing a transverse line at traffic lights. Nyamakura was convicted of criminal abuse of office and sentenced to three years in prison in August.
The State’s case was that the officer released the driver and his Mazda Demio after receiving the note. An anti-corruption team intercepted the vehicle and found Nyamakura with US$24. The US$10 note was in his left pocket, while another US$14 was in his right pocket. He was unable to account for the cash.
In May 2025, three other officers were arrested after allegedly demanding US$500 from the crew of a broken-down bus. The officers approached the Bless It Up Company bus claiming they were searching for smuggled goods. They allegedly told the conductor that the vehicle was under arrest and would be taken to Darwendale Camp unless he paid.
The conductor reported the demand to Chief Inspector Maxwell Tomwe. A trap operation was arranged, and the conductor handed marked money to Constable Tichaona Fitzgerald Chitereka while law enforcement officers waited nearby. Chitereka, Sergeant Simbarashe Nyerere and Constable Pardon Chindudzi were arrested.
A separate US$5,000 sting operation in March this year involved two officers from the Criminal Investigations Department’s Minerals section in Mutare. Taona Zhou and Observant Tinashe Marodza appeared in court after they were accused of demanding money from a transport operator whose trucks were carrying mineral ore to Mozambique.
The State alleged that the officers seized the drivers’ passports and vehicle registration books after intercepting the trucks. They were accused of demanding US$5,000 to facilitate the vehicles’ release after an earlier payment had allegedly been made. The Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission authorised a trap, and the officers were arrested after marked money was handed over under surveillance. They were charged with extortion or, alternatively, bribery and were granted bail.
The Chipinge case is different in that the payment was made by the mother of a detained man seeking his release, and the officers were dealt with through police disciplinary proceedings rather than a criminal trial in the High Court. The court action centred on whether they could halt the detention and reopen the internal case, not on a fresh hearing of the bribery evidence.
For Tausen and Dewa, the High Court’s decision closes the immediate route they used to delay their sentence. Their 14 days in detention follows the collapse of their internal appeal and the dismissal of their late review application, after a payment that was supposed to free a suspect instead brought the conduct of two serving officers before their superiors and the courts.
The Zimbabwe Republic Police has urged the public to report corruption, bribery and other criminal conduct involving police officers. The Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission also accepts reports from citizens and describes its work as preventing and combating corruption through enforcement, public education, research and partnerships.
The cases have brought the focus back to the use of police authority at roadblocks, stations and points of detention. In the Chipinge matter, the complaint came from a mother who paid money after officers offered a path out of custody. The payment did not bring her son’s release, and her decision to report the officers set in motion the internal process that ended with their conviction and detention.
For the two officers, the punishment is 14 days. For the police service, the case now stands alongside longer prison sentences and continuing bribery prosecutions involving officers accused of using official powers to demand money from members of the public.