A 36-YEAR-OLD Karoi taxi driver was allegedly murdered and fed to the lions by carjackers who dumped his body in a lion-infested game park where it was devoured by the wild animals, which only left his blood-stained shredded clothes.

Report by Charles Laiton

The incident that sent chills within the commuting public in Mashonaland West province occurred on March 11, 2011 in the Chirundu area where the victim, Alneshto Bayeta, was based. Tafadzwa Watson Mapfoche (21) and Thinkwell Zaranyika (22) allegedly confessed to police to killing Bayeta by throwing him down the steep slopes of the Marongora Heights after robbing him of his vehicle, a Nissan March.

Mapfoche and Zaranyika were arrested by police three weeks later and the vehicle was later recovered at a farm in Mhangura, but it had been stripped of some parts.

On the fateful day, Bayeta was pirating in Leonard Mhundwa’s vehicle when the two men hired him from Karoi to ferry them to an unknown destination.

It is alleged when they got to the Marongora Heights in the Chirundu area, Mapfoche and Zaranyika forced Bayeta out of his vehicle, killed him and dumped his body

in a lion-infested game park where it was later devoured by the beasts. Efforts to recover Bayeta’s body by the police in conjunction with officials from National Parks proved fruitless.

They only managed to retrieve torn pieces of his pair of brown shoes, a navy blue pair of trousers, a white shirt, belt and underwear.

The clothes were scattered in a manner consistent with a body devoured by wild animals. Mapfoche and Zaranyika appeared at the High Court in Harare last week before Justice Felistus Chatukuta facing a murder charge.

The matter was postponed to Friday this week for judgment

Prosecutor Charles Manhiri appeared for the State.

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