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Nqobile Tshili, Chronicle Correspondent
GOVERNMENT has acquired an electronic machine to profile individuals’ fingerprints, as criminals – particularly repeat offenders – were taking advantage of the absence of a computerised fingerprint database system to evade justice by giving false names in court.

A number of unrepentant criminals are evading justice by providing false information to police once arrested.

Some of the criminals even falsify their ages while others give fictitious names to evade being linked to their previous crimes.

Last month, police in Bulawayo arrested a suspected murderer who had killed a woman from Cowdray Park suburb while serving a sentence at one of the country’s prisons.

Police arrested Peter Nyathi (29) at Bulawayo Prison where he had started serving a 10-month prison term for unlawful entry and theft which he committed in Shangani, Matabeleland South.

He allegedly supplied a false name and was convicted as Mthulisi Nyathi to avoid being identified as a convict who had absconded a number of cases in the courts.

Nyathi is not the only criminal to have used the same modus operandi.

A senior prison officer earlier this year decried the use of fake names by prisoners saying it was stalling the rehabilitation of convicts.

In an interview, Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Cde Ziyambi Ziyambi said Government has since acquired an electronic machine which police will use to profile individuals who would have provided their fingerprints.

“I think with the automated fingerprint identification system which police have acquired, if someone has been arrested his particulars would be fed into the system.

“What is left is for us to have a fully computerised system where all the police stations would be connected to the system,” said Minister Ziyambi.

“We should then be able to say once your fingerprint is taken automatically, we will be able from our database to link it to an individual who has committed a crime as their name will appear in the system.

“Through the new technology, we will be able to do away with that system where one would use multiple names to evade being identified faster.”

He said the Ministry of Home Affairs and Culture is expected to push the electronic profiling of criminal cases while advancing scientific means of dealing with crimes.

“What is required is that they need to upload fingerprints into that system. I’m not sure how they will connect with the vital registration system so that they will be able to trace the actual names of people,” Minister Ziyambi said.

“We’re still lagging behind in terms of our forensic pathology laboratories and DNA testing. It’s one of the areas in which the Ministry of Home Affairs is trying to push so that we can move along with other nations.” —@nqotshili