CHITUNGWIZA, Mystery over CCC activist Ali’s body deepens as her family fails to locate it after State security agents seized it last year when it was found dumped in a well. Moreblessing Ali’s funeral has been one of Zimbabwe’s longest as her remains were dismembered, and her family vows to bury her only after CCC interim chairman Job Sikhala, who is also their lawyer, is released from remand prison.
Sikhala has been in pre-trial incarceration since his arrest on June 14 last year. Ali’s family has been denied access to her body at Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals’ mortuary, where the state claims it is being kept. Her UK-based brother, Washington, said the family is being denied access to her body, and they do not know where it is.
Washington claimed that the body was once at Chitungwiza General Hospital mortuary, but it was stolen without the family’s knowledge. The family was told that it was taken to Parirenyatwa Hospital, but when they tried to see the body, they were denied access.
National police spokesperson Assistant Commissioner, Paul Nyathi, challenged the family to state exactly who was denying them access to the body, rather than casting aspersions over every State institution.
Washington said the family would demand to see the body soon after Sikhala’s release from prison. He revealed that the family had engaged Members of Parliament in the UK to intervene in Sikhala’s case.
Ali went missing on May 24 last year after she was reportedly attacked and dragged away from a bar in Beatrice by known Zanu PF activist Pius Mukandi. Her dismembered body was recovered from a well in the Nyatsime area two weeks later.
