BULAWAYO – A 37-year-old police officer based at Hillside Police Station in Bulawayo was charged with the March 6 murder of police detective Cassandra Hove on Tuesday.
Nomore Muradzikwa was not asked to plead when he appeared before Bulawayo magistrate Maxwell Ncube who remanded him in custody to April 1 after advising him to apply for bail at the High Court.
Hove’s family were in the gallery as the National Prosecuting Authority finally gave details of how the mother of four was shot dead by her own colleague.
Nkanyezi Xaba, prosecuting, said Hove and Muradzikwa were part of a team tracking down armed robbery suspects in Pumula South.
They developed a target – 26-year-old Fikile Ncube, a resident of Pumula South.
At around 8.30PM, the officers confronted Ncube in the Habbek area near the home and church of Prophet Ngwenya, a famous seer.
“Muradzikwa was armed with a CZ pistol when he advanced towards Fikile Ncube. He corked his firearm and shot him hitting him once on the left elbow after which the bullet ricocheted and hit Hove once on the left breast resulting in her death,” Xaba said.
The CZ pistol was recovered in his possession, the court heard.
Muradzikwa is represented by Tinashe Tashaya.
Hove’s family who attended court said they did so after reading in the media that Muradzikwa would appear, as they lambasted the police once again over their handling of the case.
“Procedurally, I thought police would inform us first that they had a suspect who would be appearing in court. They didn’t and that’s disappointing,” said Abias Hove, a brother to the late detective.
He said the family still had a lot of questions over Cassandra’s death, including why it had taken two weeks to bring her alleged killer before a court.
He quipped: “What were the police doing all this time?”
Cassandra, who was a member of an elite all-women CID unit known as Lozikeyi, was buried at her rural home in Mberengwa.
Meanwhile Ncube, the alleged suspect shot by police, spent several days at Mpilo Central Hospital under police guard before he was transferred to Khami Prison.
His friends dispute that he is an armed robber. Instead, they say Ncube arrived in Bulawayo to help out with his mother who has been unwell for months and is receiving treatment from Prophet Ngwenya.
When he was shot, the friends said, Ncube had gone to a place near Prophet Ngwenya’s residence called Emabhombeni where “bombing,” a ritual of smashing bottles filled with “prayer water” against rocks is performed.
