Soul Jah Love court trial continues

 

soul jah

The trial of Soul Jah Love, who is accused of violating the Civil Aviation regulations, continued yesterday with the second witness testifying in court.

The second State witness only identified as Mathuthu, a security officer for the Civil Aviation Authority of Zimbabwe, said the accused failed to comply with the security procedures.

Born Saul Musaka, the chanter is alleged to have insisted on passing with his ball through the security checkpoint uttering statements that threatened the safety of passengers.

“When I arrived at the X-rays where we screen passengers, my supervisor, Mrs Mbodza was advising the accused to deflate his ball but he seemed not to understand what was being explained to him.

“As we normally do when a passenger fails to understand an instruction, I intervened and tried to explain to the accused why he had to deflate his ball to which he still failed to comply,” said Mathuthu.

Mathuthu told the court that the accused refused to deflate his ball and proceeded to the boarding gates where he was denied entrance.

He is said to have knelt down shouting that, “Ndege haimhare kana ini ndisimo. ”  (The plane will not land if I am not aboard)

“When someone utters such statements, it becomes a crime as we feel there may be a security threat to the passengers,” said Mathuthu.

During cross examination, Mathuthu denied the allegations by Musaka that he was assaulted by security personnel at the airport citing that the Aviation Authority security code of conduct does not allow any apprehension of passengers and if a person commits a crime, they are apprehended by law enforcement agents.

Musaka, who appeared before Harare magistrate Learnmore Mapiye has since pleaded not guilty to the charges. Owen Safuri represented the State. The trial continues on February 6