The body of Zimbabwe’s first army commander General Solomon Mujuru had a hole in the abdomen and emitted blue flames when it was retrieved from his farmhouse that was gutted by fire last year, an inquest heard on Tuesday.

Police Constable Clatwell Garisayi, who was the 23rd witness to give evidence after the inquest opened last week, was the first to give graphic details of how the body of the husband of Vice President Joice Mujuru was discovered.

“At the back of the house, people managed to identify a bluish flame. There was an object, which was burning. I peeped through the window and saw an object with folded hands...it was a akin to a human body,” he said.

When the body was finally retrieved, it took 10 buckets of fire to put out the flames, the police officer revealed.

“The body was still on fire and there were strange blue flames coming out of both sides of his abdomen and around the body,” Contable Garisayi said.

Bluish flame

Another police officer, Inspector Simon Dube, told the inquest: “The fire was bluish and the area covering the chest had flesh but the bottom area was heavily burnt and on the head only the skull remained.”

“His lungs and intestines were burnt extensively and the head was just a skull,” he said.

VP Mujuru, the late general's widow, has said the inquest will provide answers to what happened to her husband whom some believe was assassinated.

“It’s becoming clearer and clearer what happened and the inquest is proving to be the best way of handling the matter,” VP Mujuru said.

Last week, she suggested the security lapses at the farm, which was supposed to be guarded around the clock, were “shocking.”

On Tuesday, the inquest was told that police at the nearest station had no vehicle to respond to the fire after they received a call at 3:15 AM on August 16.
Gen Mujuru was considered to be the only politician in President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu PF who could stand up to the 87-year-old leader.

Scaring away snakes

He was believed to be leading one of the factions positioning themselves in anticipation of the ageing President Mugabe’s departure.

The other witness who was the late general's maid, Rosemary Short, said the relationship between Mujuru and the security officers guarding his home deteriorated with time.

She at one point said the officers would sometimes fire wildly at night and when asked why they did so they would say they were trying to scare away snakes.

Gen Mujuru reportedly grew tired of them and wanted them replaced. At one point she said the general stopped her from giving them food because he was not happy with their conduct.

She added that her employer neither smoked nor kept cigarettes and matchboxes that could have ignited a fire in the bedroom.