HARARE - An electrician ruled out the possibility that an electrical fault caused the fire that gutted the late Solomon Mujuru’s farm house in Beatrice last August.

Douglas Chiradza Nyakungu who is employed by the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (Zesa) as the customer service officer for Beatrice, said investigations conducted at the late general’s farm ruled out an electrical fault.

A fire expert from the Harare Fire Brigade Clever Mafoti had before the Zesa expert told the court that his department failed to ascertain what could have caused the fire because key evidence that could have assisted them had been destroyed.

With Zesa saying there was no electric fault, this has brought to the fore the question — what caused the fire that destroyed Mujuru’s house and so far the question had not been answered eight days into the inquest.

Mujuru’s charred remains were found after his house had been gutted by fire  at his Beatrice farm. It is not yet clear if he died before the fire or after the fire.

Giving evidence in the on-going inquest to determine the cause of Mujuru’s death, Nyakungu said all the electrical wiring to the general’s house were intact.

“Wiring was encased in iron pipes. We saw that all the roof pipes had not suffered any damages, the same with pipes on the wall. This is indicative of the fact that fire destroyed electrical wiring in the house,” said Nyakungu.

State counsel representative Sharon Fero asked Nyakungu whether a Zesa fault could have caused the fire. But he replied that according to their investigations, the wiring in the house was in good condition.

“According to our observations no such appliances seemed to have caused the fire at the house. If there was a fault, electricity would have switched off at the source point but there was nothing like that,” said Nyakungu.

He further told the court that of all appliances that were in the house, none of them had high current carrying capacity, ruling out the possibility of the fire having been ignited as a result of socket overload.

Mafoti told the court that two points had been identified as starting points of the fire; a situation which he said was only possible in cases involving arson or an electrical short circuit or fire-balls as a result of a hot mixture of oxygen and dust particles.

“During the time we eventually arrived, most of the leads had been destroyed by the people who were present,” said Mafoti.

“If fire breaks out in a room and rages on for a long time without being noticed it ends up consuming the entire oxygen. So in the event that there will be an opening for example in the ceiling, dust in the ceiling will start expanding.

“There will be a mixture of dust and air. Dust will expand like gases that will lead to explosion forcing fire to leap from one end to the other.” said Mafoti.

But following Nyakungu’s explanations, arson remained a possible cause of the fire.

Police details assigned to guard the late general earlier on told the court that fire could have been started from a geyser but Nyakungu yesterday said no fault could be detected from their investigations.

Nyakungu’s assertion that no electrical fault caused fire presents another murky angle to the mysterious fire that burnt Mujuru’s body beyond recognition.

Mujuru’s maid, Rosemary Short disputed assertions that the fire was caused by a candle. She said it was impossible considering that she did not leave matches in the general’s bedroom. Mujuru was not a smoker.

Prosecutor Clemence Chimbari yesterday produced 15 burnt rifles out of 17 that were in Mujuru’s house. He also produced seven burnt magazines and several rounds of ammunition.

These were produced when chief superintendent Crispen Makedenge, who is the investigating officer in the case, was testifying.

Makedenge said two of the 17 rifles were found lying down in Mujuru’s bedroom, while the rest were in the gun cabinet.

Makedenge, who is the 28th witness, told the court that pathologists and forensic scientists took flesh samples on charred remains of the body found in Mujuru’s house to positively identify who the person was.

He further said the samples were taken to South Africa together with blood samples from Mujuru’s daughter Kumbirai Rungano for paternity tests. 

Makedenge continues giving evidence today as the inquest enters its ninth day.