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In an astonishing development, a Zimbabwean human trafficker is celebrating after she was released from a Prison where she was supposed to serve a 50-year jail term.
Stunningly, she was released after serving only 2-years following a prisoner amnesty by President Emmerson Mnangagwa.
According iHarare, the convicted human trafficker Norest Maruma was one of the beneficiaries of the programme and was released together with 54 other inmates as free women from Chikurubi Female Prison on Tuesday.
Maruma was the ringleader of a trafficking gang that took advantage of desperate women who were seeking jobs. In December 2017, Maruma was convicted by Harare magistrate Lazini Ncube of facilitating the trafficking of five Zimbabwean women to Kuwait where they were turned into slaves and prostitutes.
The matter was then referred to the high court for sentencing since crimes of this nature attract a penal provision of life imprisonment or a mandatory minimum of 10 years per count. High Court judge Justice Tawanda Chitapi slapped her with a combined 50 years in jail after sentencing her to 10 years in prison on each count.
However, on Tuesday Maruma was having the last laugh when she was released after serving just two years of her sentence.
Speaking to the media after her release a jubilant Maruma said, “This is a miracle and God is wonderful. I want to thank our mother, the First Lady Auxillia Mnangagwa and President Emerson Mnangagwa for granting us freedom,”
Maruma’s mother Memory Maruma was beside herself with joy and told the media, “When my daughter was sentenced. I could not believe it. Every weekend I would visit her here. I only stopped due to the lockdown. Every day, I would kneel to pray for my daughter and today, my prayers have been answered” according to NewZimbabwe.
