Former Energy Minister Undenge released from jail
Former Minister Samuel Undenge is back from college
Former Energy and Power Development Minister, Samuel Undenge, has been released from jail after President Emmerson Mnangagwa signed the presidential amnesty.
Undenge, who was convicted of prejudicing the Zimbabwe Power Company (ZPC) of US$12 650, was in 2018 sentenced to an effective two-and-a-half years in jail.
He appeared before Harare regional magistrate Mr Hoseah Mujaya facing charges of criminal abuse of office and was convicted after a full trial.
Undenge was sentenced to four years in prison, with one-and-a-half years suspended on the condition that he does not commit a similar crime.
Undenge began a two-and-a-half-year jail sentence last year after losing his appeal against a 2018 conviction for corruption.
The government has gazetted the legal instrument that will see 2500 prisoners falling under selected categories being released from correctional facilities countrywide.
Some facilities have since started releasing prisoners who qualified for the amnesty.
The development follows the approval of a request to President Mnangagwa which was recently made by the Zimbabwe Prisons and Correctional Services (ZPCS).
In a government gazette’s general notice 695 of 2021 yesterday, the Secretary for Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Virginia Mabhiza said President Mnangagwa had signed the clemency order number 1 of 2021 in terms of section 112 (1) (a) (d) of the country’s constitution.
She added that the amnesty will help in decongesting prisons.
According to the legal order, all-female prisoners, juveniles under the age of 18 years, prisoners serving effective sentences of 36 months and below, and all prisoners aged 60 years and above except those convicted of specified offences qualify to benefit from the clemency order.
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