POLICE have arrested a man and are looking for another after two donkeys were stolen and locked up in a HUT for 20 days.
Sifelani Mnkandla, 19, appeared before a Tsholotsho magistrate on Wednesday charged with stock theft. His alleged accomplice, Skiri Ndlovu, is on the run.
The two men may yet learn that the law is not an ASS. If convicted, they could be jailed for between nine and 25 years under Zimbabwe's harsh anti-stock theft laws.
Prosecuting, Joshua Muguti told Tsholotsho magistrate Toendepi Zhou that on September 10 this year, Finish Ndlovu’s two male donkeys worth US$400 were grazing in the Manyenge area of Sipepa – some 130km north-west of Bulawayo.
Mkandla, in the company of Skiri Ndlovu, the prosecutor alleged, rounded up the donkeys and herded them to Skiri’s homestead where they penned them in one of the huts.
The donkeys stayed locked in the hut, without water and food, until October 1 when a member of the local Neighbourhood Watch Committee was alerted.
Enot Nkungu Ndlovu freed the donkeys and managed to apprehend Mnkandla, but Skiri escaped.
