The wife of a retired senior police officer from Gweru has been sentenced to 18 months imprisonment for kidnapping an infant aged two months.
Sakhile Tanyanyiwa (34), who is the wife of former Police Commissioner Mekia Tanyanyiwa, appeared before the Gweru Magistrates Court this Tuesday, 12 March facing charges of kidnapping.
Tanyanyiwa will, however, serve an effective 12 months in prison after the court conditionally suspended 6 months for 5 years.
The court heard that on 08 March 2024, the infant’s mother went to Gweru Provincial Hospital to collect her baby’s birth record.
On her way back she was offered a lift into town by Tanyanyiwa who was in the company of another man and woman.
The three were in a white Toyota Aqua registration number AFW 6208.
One of the occupants in the vehicle advised the complainant that they would be making a stopover in South View on the way to Gweru Central Business District.
When they got to 6247 South View, the Tanyanyiwa asked the infant’s mother to assist the woman with a “newly born” to disembark from the vehicle. Said the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA):
As the complainant got out of the vehicle the car sped off headed towards the Gweru – Bulawayo highway with the 3 people and her baby. She reported the matter to the Police.
The accused took the child home and misrepresented to her husband that she had given birth.
Her husband did not believe that the child was a newborn infant and doubted her story all the more when he heard that a baby had been snatched in Gweru.
The retired top cop took his wife and the baby to CID Gweru. Tanyanyiwa was positively identified by the infant’s mother at a formal identification parade.
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