FORMER Finance minister and Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) Tendai Biti is being accused of breaching section 20 of the schedule to the Legal Practitioners Code of Conduct that proscribe engaging in conduct that is likely to either diminish public confidence in the legal profession.
Law firm, Scanlen & Holderness representing Tatiana Aleshina of West Properties wrote to the Law Society of Zimbabwe complaining about Biti – a legal practitioner forr interfering with witnesses in a matter pending before the courts.
Reads the letter of complaint: “We represent Tatiana Aleshina of West Properties (Private) Limited at whose instance we write, kindly note our interest.
“Our instructions are that our client is a complainant in the above matter in which Mr Biti is charged with assault.
“The charges emanate from an incident that occurred on 30 November 2020 at Rotten Row where he perpetrated an unprovoked attack upon our client as she walked out of court where she had attended for a case involving her employer and in which he represented the accused one George Katsimberis.”
The assault charges are pending trial at Rotten Row.
Scanlen & Holderness said ahead of the last remand, a message was widely circulated on the WhatsApp platform which sought to mobilise CCC supporters to “come to court in their numbers to besiege the courts where his trial as aforementioned is set”.
“Our client has nothing to do with politics and this is against her modus as an international investor. She does not want to be involved in the country’s politics and its political arena.
“The message is intimidatory and inspires in her fear and dread. As a legal practitioner, Mr Biti is now intimidating her and making aspersions that she is involved in trying to harm him personally which she finds disturbing and unbecoming of him,” said the law firm.
It added that Aleshina has instructed them to seek the LSZ’s intervention to protect her “in her pursuit of recourse against the personal conduct by Miti in perpetrating an assault upon her which is the subject of the pending criminal proceedings”.
