The case, in which controversial Zimbabwe Football Association chief executive officer Henrietta Rushwaya is accused of siphoning US$2 400 from the association is heading for a retrial, The Zimbabwe Gazette can reveal.

The magistrate said he had resigned from the case because of personal reasons.

"I wish to point that I have recused myself from handling the matter for personal reasons.”

"At the moment I am not at liberty to disclose my reasons," Murendo says.

With Murendo recusing himself, Tawanda Zvakare had no platform to present his prosecution because the case was immediately stopped.

When the case opened in November last year Alois Gakata was prosecuting but he had been replaced on the case for area public prosecutor Zvakare who had been on industrial action all along.

Sources at the Rotten Row Courts said Murendo had been cowed into resigning from the case by Rushwaya threatened to use her access to Zimbabwe’s vice president Joseph Msika in dealing with the magistrate.

Msika in the patron of the Zimbabwe Football Association and also worked with Rushwaya on the Warriors Fund Raising committee which catapulted the lady into main stream football administration two-years ago.

"Rushwaya was actually boasting that she will not be tried by poorly paid magistrate and we suspect that she might have tried to pay out some bribes to the investigation officer.

"We could see that the case was falling away by the way she got her passport back and had her reporting conditions relaxed in December," said one prosecutor at the Rotten Row Courts.

The case against Rushwaya had appeared strong on her arrest in November and weakened in December when key witnesses Tafirenyika Chitsungo and Wellington Nyatanga denied any knowledge that ZIFA had been defrauded.

Chitsungo is the acting ZIFA finance and administration manager while Nyatanga is the ZIFA board chairman.

A Harare lawyer told The Zimbabwe Gazette that the State should now order a fresh retrial on Rushwaya.

"The State can do a denovos, which means it has to open another trial under a new magistrate and prosecuting teams appointed by the regional magistrate."

The case against Rushwaya is that ZIFA nominated three officials to attend the Confederation of African Football FIFA Future Level Three administration course in Tanzania in August 2007.

ZIFA took US$2 100 from its foreign currency account at the CBZ Second Street Branch intending to pay Jonathan Musavengana, a programs officer with ZIFA, Kennedy Ndebele, the Premier Soccer League secretary and Zimbabwe Women’s Football League chief executive Teresa Maguraushe US$700 each for the week they were spending in Tanzania as allowances.

But Rushwaya is alleged to have paid the three US$350 each instead of US$700 and it is the State’s case that she pocketed the remaining US$1 050.

In September 2007, the State further alleges Rushwaya was assigned to attend the 8th Women’s Football Symposium and the Women’s World Cup finals in China.

She went with national team manager Charity Mudzviti.

ZIFA withdrew US$2 400 from its account and the two only shared $1050. Rushwaya is alleged to have converted the remainder to her personal use.

ZIFA board member for finance Gladmore Muzambi authorised the withdrawals while Chitsungo made the vouchers.

Rushwaya is also staring into allegations that she converted to her own use money that was meant for player bonuses over their participation at a four-team Agri-Bank invitational tournament in Vietnam in November when she paid each player US$250 instead of the expected $1 500.

This matter is being dealt within the ZIFA corridors.

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