Comedienne Felistas Murata, popularly known as Mai TT, has denied theft of trust property charges laid against her by a car rental company.
She appeared before Harare regional magistrate Munashe Chibanda and denied the State’s claims that she transferred a car, which she was renting, to a loan shark she owed US$10 000.
Mai TT told the court she left it under the care of Rachel Mhuka, who was her friend, as she was traveling to the UK.
She told the court that she gave Mhuka the car for safekeeping, not as collateral, as claimed by the State. She said the company, Else Event Car Hire, was aware of this arrangement.
There was no specific date of returning the vehicle as there exists an indefinite hire agreement, she said, which to date has not been cancelled.
She denied ever failing to return the car to Else Event Car Hire as their obligations were clearly spelt out in the hire agreement.
Mai TT claimed the contract between them is still valid and operational and stated that Mhuka only claimed she had the car as security when the police came to recover it without lawful cause.
The State led evidence from Mhuka who said she gave Mai TT a loan and was given the car as collateral.
“Murata came to me and told me she wanted to borrow US$10 000 and had a Mercedes Benz vehicle as surety. She was my friend and I had no reason not to trust her so I gave her the money and she gave me the Benz. After a while, she came to collect the Benz saying it wasn’t hers, and left an Audi Q, as surety, but she later collected the Audi and left her invalid passport as surety.
After noticing that the passport was invalid, I confronted her and she then returned the Audi,” she said.
She told the court that she was surprised when the company representatives came to collect the car after Mai TT had travelled to the UK.
Monalisa Magwenzi prosecuted.
Source: My Zimbabwe
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