London - All the personalities in a gruesome murder trial being heard in a British court this week are Zimbabwean.
A Zimbabwean, serving as a territorial in the British army stabbed his former Zimbabwean girlfriend to death at her home in the UK last year because she had taken up with her former Zimbabwean boyfriend who was visiting the UK at the time.
Josphat Mutekedza, 36, allegedly waited for homecare nurse Miriam Nyazema, 37, at her house in the Manchester area, and attacked her with a knife.
The court heard that she had started dating Jacob Chigombe, a former lover who was visiting the UK from Zimbabwe, prosecutors say.
Mark Kellet, opening the prosecution’s case, said the defendant stabbed Nyazema in the face, chest, shoulder and back after she arrived at her home with her new boyfriend.
Neighbours tried to help the woman who had a knife stuck in her back, but were chased way by the accused who threatened them with a gun.
Mutekedza pleaded guilty to manslaughter on Monday but denied a count of murder.
Prosecutor Kellet said: “The defendant has admitted the unlawful killing and stabbing of Miriam Nyazema.
“The Crown says that by stabbing her repeatedly with such severe force, he must have intended to kill her or, at the very least, cause serious harm. What other intention could he have?”
The court heard one of two emergency calls made by Mutekedza from the crime scene, during which he admitted stabbing Nyazema: “I stabbed her myself,” he told emergency services.
“She has been cheating on me.
When I came home she was with another man.”
Paramedics were called by neighbours but they could not save the woman who had a knife stuck in her back.
Tens of thousands of Zimbabweans fled to the UK post 2000 claiming political persecution after a new opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, MDC, nearly beat President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party in elections in 2000.
Many Zimbabweans were given asylum but many still wait for their cases to be adjudicated.
Independent Foreign Service