HARARE – Dynamos club chairperson Bernard Marriot Lusengo has been acquitted in the case in which he was being accused of fraud.

Harare magistrate Yeukai Dzuda freed the football administrator at the close of State’s case, ruling that prosecution had failed to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt.

Dzuda said evidence available was too weak for any reasonable court to pass a guilty verdict.

“In casu, it is the court’s humble view that former players are those who played in 1963 and none of these complainants joined or played for the club in 1963, they actually joined after 1963.

“The State failed to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt. Therefore, the accused is found not guilty and is acquitted,” ruled the magistrate.

Allegations were that sometime in 2005, there was a dispute between founding members and former players at Dynamos.

Civil Case No 93/05 went before Chief Justice Luke Malaba who ruled that each founder member or former player was entitled to 1% share of the total shares of the club.

It is alleged that in 2008, elections were held within the club which duly elected the now late football great George Shaya as chairman and Ernest Kamba as club secretary.

A few days after Shaya’s election, Marriot in connivance with the late Richard Chiminya, illegally appointed Chiminya as chairman who then co-opted the accused, it had been alleged.

The state further claimed that after Chiminya’s death in 2012, Marriot forged documents which purported to appoint him as Dynamos chairman.

On Monday. Marriot took to the witness stand to defend himself after his application for discharge at the close of the state’s case was trashed.

He insisted he remains one of Dynamos’ heroes adding that the founding members and former players who were present when the club was formed in 1963 were all the same.

Prosecutor Dzidzai Josiah had read out the 1963 Dynamos constitution which says that the founding members and those who played for the team during its pioneering era were entitled to at least one share.

The prosecutor also asked Marriot if he defied the 2005 Supreme Court order.

The order ruled that the club’s 1963 constitution had not been amended and remained the only legal document that will be used till it was time for it to be amended or repealed.

“We do whatever we want, when we founded Dynamos club, we were all players, former players were not entitled to any shares,” he responded.

“Those who joined the club after 1963 are not entitled to any shares.

“All these people who are here were not there when the club was founded, we are the heroes of Dynamos, we are the founders of Dynamos.

Leslie Gwinji is the complainant in the matter.

Drawing parallels with the interment of national heroes in Zimbabwe, Marriot said one could not be buried at the nationals heroes acre when they did not go to war.

“All those who went to war were accorded the hero statuses and they were buried at the heroes acre.

“If you did not go to war you can only be accorded that status if your family requests for it,” he said.