Table 25
Association of damages claims with shootings
Shootings
3,634,476
349,177
11,012
1,156
Amount claimed (Z$)
Amount awarded (Z$)
Amount claimed (US$)
Amount awarded (US$)
No shooting
4,349,190
154,467
6,142
57*
* t-test: Damages awarded in US$ (P <0.00001)
3.3 Other offences
There were only a few cases of arson, and this usually came together with destruction-of-property
cases. Also there were cases of theft, of wrongful death and of forced displacement, and there were
no cases of rape. The main complaints in these civil cases were of assault, assault GBH, unlawful
arrest and detention, as well as torture (Table 26). What are referred to here as multiple offences are
cases where one defendant is sued for damages for more than one offence, e.g. assault GBH and
torture, or unlawful arrest and unlawful detention. As can be seen, there were no cases where a
person was sued for unlawful arrest alone; it is usually combined with either assault or unlawful
detention.
The ‘other’ category in the table includes offences that were not placed in separate categories of their
own, e.g. degrading treatment, abduction and attempted murder. The majority of these represent the
Food Riots cases which consisted of assaults in people’s homes after they were accused of looting
during the riots.
Table 26
Cases involving other offences
Offence
Arson
Assault
Assault GBH
Destruction of property
Forced displacement
Rape
Theft
Torture
Unlawful arrest
Unlawful detention
Wrongful death
Other
Single offence
1
30
91
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
16
Multiple
7
43
99
16
1
0
2
72
34
57
2
31
Total
8
73
190
16
1
0
2
72
34
57
3
47
Percentage
2.75
25.09
65.29
5.5
0.34
0
0.69
24.74
11.68
19.59
1.03
16.15
The two cases of theft involved the police, where they stole personal property from the plaintiffs,
i.e. mobile phones and money.
One of the three wrongful death cases was a Food Riots case where a 17-year–old boy was shot and
killed by the riot squad while coming home from school.31 The second case involved a member of
the army who fatally beat up a man in a fight, and in the remaining case a man was shot and killed
by either the police or army when he was taking part in peaceful industrial action at his workplace. The Food Riots case is the only one that was concluded and the police have paid damages for
wrongful death to the tune of US$209.
31
See Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum, What Happened to the Victims of the Food Riots?
19
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