Police officers lose bid to escape detention after assaulting suspect, demanding US$370 bribe

Two police officers convicted of assaulting a theft suspect and soliciting a US$370 bribe from his mother have lost a bid to stop their 14-day detention after the High Court ruled that their application for review was fatally defective.

Sergeant Talent Lazarus Tausen, stationed at ZRP Chipinge Urban, and Constable Edwin Dewa of Nyabadza Police Station were sentenced to 14 days at Chikurubi Detention Barracks after being convicted in police disciplinary proceedings.

They approached the High Court seeking a stay of execution while they pursued a review of their convictions and sentence.

But Justice Sijabuliso Siziba, sitting at the Mutare High Court, dismissed the application, saying the review application they relied on was itself invalid and could not provide a basis for stopping their punishment.

“The present application for stay of execution by the applicants has no legs to stand on as it is anchored upon a fatally defective application for review that can never succeed,” the judge said.

“The purported application for review is actually a nullity which can never be properly before the court.”

The disciplinary case arose from events between November 8 and 13, 2025, at Chisumbanje Police Station, where the officers were accused of badly assaulting theft suspect Sydney Muchongoyo after he alighted from an Inter Africa bus carrying a bag allegedly belonging to someone else.

The officers were also accused of demanding money from Muchongoyo’s mother, Alice Chikumba, for her son’s release.

Chikumba allegedly paid US$370, but demanded the money back after the officers failed to release her son.

The disciplinary trial accepted evidence against the officers and convicted them. Their appeal to the Commissioner General of Police was subsequently dismissed.

After learning of the dismissal on July 28, 2026, the officers filed an urgent application on July 31 seeking to stop execution of the sentence while they pursued a High Court review.

Their lawyer argued that the disciplinary proceedings were flawed, including the admission of evidence from an interested witness, and that the evidence supporting the bribery charge was insufficient.

But the State argued that there was no valid review application before the court and that the officers were effectively trying to appeal their convictions under the guise of a review.

The High Court agreed.

Siziba found that the review application did not contain the grounds of review or the relief sought on its face, contrary to the requirements of Rule 62(2) of the High Court Rules.

The judge said the defect was fatal and could not be cured by placing alleged review grounds in the founding affidavit.

The application was also filed more than 20 weeks after the disciplinary proceedings ended, despite the rules requiring a review to be filed within eight weeks.

The officers’ argument that their application was filed promptly after their appeal was dismissed in July did not cure the delay.

“The submission that the applicants’ appeal was dismissed in July 2026 does not mean that trial proceedings which terminated way back in January 2026 can still be reviewed now without condonation,” Siziba said.

The judge also found that the officers’ complaints were fundamentally grounds of appeal rather than review.

Complaints about the admission of evidence, insufficient evidence and the severity of the sentence, Siziba said, ordinarily belong in an appeal.

“What applicants’ counsel failed to appreciate is that grounds of review are limited by the law as opposed to grounds of appeal,” the judge said.

“It is not enough for a party to merely cite the provisions of s 26, 27, 28 and 29 of the High Court Act … or to merely throw in the incantations such as ‘gross irregularity, irrational, bias, unreasonable’.”

The court said applicants must demonstrate a legally recognised ground of review rather than simply label complaints as irrationality, bias or gross irregularity.

Finding that there was no valid review application underpinning the urgent application, the court dismissed the bid for a stay of execution with costs.

The ruling means the officers’ 14-day detention sentence can now be enforced.

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