War Vets arrest latest
ZIMBABWE National Liberation War Veteran Association spokesperson Douglas Mahiya, who is facing charges of undermining the authority of the President, has been remanded in custody to Monday for bail ruling.
Harare magistrate Mr Vakai Chikwekwe yesterday said he needed more time to consider the bail hearing submisssions.
Prosecutors Mr Tapiwa Kasema and Ms Sharon Fero opposed granting of bail saying Mahiya would likely interfere with the police who arrested him.
“Your Worship, considering the attitude of the public if the accused is released on bail, his security may be jeopardised. There are fears that they will be clashes between the accused and the police,” he said.
Mahiya’s lawyer, Mr Harrison Nkomo, argued that the law provided for unconditional release of suspects unless there were compelling reasons not to do so. The defence said Mahiya was not a flight risk because he did not have a passport and the last time he travelled outside the country was in 1988.
Mahiya pleaded not guilty to charges of undermining the authority or insulting the President.
It is the State’s case that between April and July 2016, Mahiya connived with other members of the war veterans association, who are still at large, and authored a document which allegedly made defamatory statements undermining the President’s authority. Mahiya also allegedly denigrated the President in an interview with SABC.
Last week police searched his house in Chitungwiza and copies of the communiqué were found and other documents titled “Response to the President’s attack on War Veterans”, which is also alleged to have undermined the authority of the President.
Present at yesterday’s hearing were South African jurists Mr Johann Krieglar and Mr George Bizos, among others. Meanwhile, police in Bulawayo summoned Matabeleland North provincial War Veterans chairman Cde Samy Mguni on Tuesday last week to probe him about the damning communique purportedly released by the former freedom fighters renouncing and castigating President Mugabe’s leadership two weeks ago.
Cde Mguni who was part of the war veterans that attended a meeting allegedly organised by the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association (ZNLWVA) a fortnight ago confirmed being picked up by the police to brief the law enforcers about any information pertaining to the author of the pejorative statement.
He, however, vehemently denied that the “treacherous” communique was written by any of their members as investigations to bring the writer intensify.
The war veterans’ leader was to be later arrested on Friday on his way to Nkayi together with Mr Benadino Anotida Kereke, Head Marketing at Doves Funeral Assurance in what he quickly dismissed as having committed “a mere traffic offence, which had nothing to do with politics at all”.
“I was accompanying Doves officials to Nkayi where we had arranged a meeting with war veterans there as part of the company to entice our members to join their funeral policy. My arrest was apolitical but it was merely a traffic offence as police at a roadblock said we were overloaded. We were six in a double-cab vehicle belonging to Doves and the police said it was an offence but we were later released at the station,” said Cde Mguni.
Mr Kereke is related to the former Bikita West legislator, Dr Munyaradzi Kereke who was convicted of rape early this month. — Harare Bureau/Sunday News Reporter