HARARE – High Court judge Lucy Mungwari has ordered the release and committal to a psychiatric unit, of a Mutoko man jailed in 2012 for killing his 2-year-old son, ruling that he was mentally unfit to realise the seriousness of his actions when he committed the heinous crime.

Farai Nyamurenje spent the past 12 years awaiting trial which only commenced after his prison mates urged him to write a letter requesting trial.

Mungwari said that Nyamurenje of Katsamudanga village in Mutoko should be committed to Chikurubi psychiatric unit because he is still a danger to the community and to himself.

She however, found him not guilty of murder due to insanity, as he had pleaded.

“The evidence unequivocally indicates that the accused cannot be held accountable for his actions on the tragic day.

“The extent of the violence he displayed, resulting in the death of a child he cherished, clearly points towards a mental disturbance at the time of the incident.

“His actions of forcibly pressing the deceased’s head into the sandy surface until death occurred underscore a departure from his usual behaviour and mindset.

“Based on the compelling evidence demonstrating the accused’s mental disorder during the critical period, we are satisfied that the accused was mentally disordered at the material time.

“We thus find him not guilty because of insanity,” she ruled.

Nyamurenje killed his son, Tatenda on 31 August 2012.

His son was under the care of a relative after his mother died soon after giving birth to him.

On the fateful night when the boy’s grandmother who was looking after him had retired to bed, Nyamurenje returned home from a beer drink.

He went to the kitchen hut where the deceased and Estere Matinyanya Nyamurenje, his mother, were asleep.

He demanded to take his son, but Estere turned him down saying it was late for him to do so.

Despite the objections, Nyamurenje overpowered her and forcibly took the child with him to a nearby Nyanguruve river.

There he laid the child on the ground, held the back of his head and pressed his face hard on the sandy surface till he died.

Nyamurenje then dug a shallow grave on the banks of the river and buried the child.

After completing the horrifying act, he surrendered himself to the police.

He led the police to the shallow grave where the body was exhumed and referred to the hospital for a postmortem.

Doctors who examined him said he was mentally unstable when he committed the offence.