RIVER Ranch Limited, the company at the centre of a bitter row over a Beitbridge diamond mine, was deregistered three years ago, a state prosecutor claimed in court this week.
Law officer Chifarayi Dube made the allegation against the company during the trial of the directors of Bubye Minerals, a rival to River Ranch Limited, accused of asset stripping.
River Ranch Limited is partly owned by Solomon Mujuru and former ZANU PF Harare East Member of Parliament Tirivanhu Mudariki.
Charges are that Bubye directors, Michael and Adel Farquhar, stripped River Ranch mine of assets worth $116 million and externalised US$60 000.
Bubye and River Ranch Limited are embroiled in an ownership dispute over the diamond mine.
"It was deregistered in 2002 and the file has since been sent to the national archives," said Dube, who is the prosecutor in the case.
Defence lawyer Godfrey Mamvura challenged the state to explain how key witness, River Ranch Limited chairman George Kantsouris, could be the chief executive of a deregistered company.
During the trial, documents, including Kantsouris' South African passport, were presented in court.
Kantsouris said he was a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) employee seconded to River Ranch Limited.
The UNDP has denied charges by Bubye that it facilitated the smuggling of diamonds from River Ranch mine. The allegations triggered a probe by the Kimberly Process. The findings, which were supposed to be made public in August, are still under wraps.
Meanwhile, the Farquhars have hired top South African lawyer, Wim Trengove to represent them in their suit against the Master of the High Court and others they accuse of trying to manipulate the judiciary to the detriment of their company.
Trengove has previously represented former South African president Nelson Mandela, and the late former South African cricket captain Hansie Cronje, in his failed bid to overturn a life ban imposed after a match fixing scandal.
In Zimbabwe Trengove represented Econet in 1996 in its battle to be licensed.
