Alleged murderer of US-based Zimbabwean man pleads...

Alleged murderer of US-based Zimbabwean man pleads "not guilty"

Go Fund Me campaign to bring Kupo Mleya shot dead in the US – The Zimbabwe Mail — Kupo Mleya

Zim Now Writer

The accused murderer of a young Zimbabwean man who had migrated to the United States of America, Kupo Mleya, has filed a written not-guilty plea.

The suspect, Karsen Rezac, 23, was set for arraignment last Wednesday on charges of second-degree murder and use of a firearm to commit a felony.

He hasn’t yet been set for trial.

Rezac is accused of firing several shots into the driver’s side door of a Jeep Patriot, fatally wounding Kupo Mleya. This was after Rezac had collided with Mleya’s Jeep while backing out of his driveway near 20th and Washington streets late December 23.

Police found Mleya, 38, in the driver’s seat of his Jeep with critical gunshot wounds. He died at the scene. The two lived a block apart on Washington Street but did not know each other.

Police said they found Rezac’s GMC Yukon with damage to the passenger side, consistent with debris found at the scene, and a rear passenger window had been damaged by gunshots.

Karsen Rezac was taken into custody less than two days after Mleya was found shot near 20th and Washington streets.

Mleya emigrated to the U.S. to attend school and had worked at the Lincoln bike shop Cycle Works, at Frontier Harley-Davidson and as a groundskeeper at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where he was a student in the late 2010s.

His late father, Brigadier General Fakazi Mleya, was declared a national hero in 2007.