A COURT released two journalists from the privately-owned Standard newspaper on bail Wednesday after they were arrested a day earlier on criminal defamation charges.
Editor Nevanji Madanhire and reporter Nqaba Matshazi were charged with stealing documents from a health insurance firm and criminally defaming its owner, Munyaradzi Kereke, an adviser to Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Governor Gideon Gono.
After a 24-hour detention, the two journalists were granted US$100 bail each and ordered to surrender their passports. Their trial is due to start on December 20.
Matshazi and Madanhire were detained over a story printed in the November 6 edition of the newspaper alleging Kereke’s Green Card Medical Society faced imminent collapse. The story carried Matshazi’s by-line.
Raphael Khumalo, the CEO of Alpha Media Holdings, publisher of the Standard, condemned the arrests.
"What we are seeing is a clear act of harassment of our journalists by the police who are being used by some influential officials in the government," Khumalo said.
Speaking after his release, Matshazi told friends on Twitter: “I must say despite the unpleasantness of life behind bars, the officer handling our case has been super professional. I bow my head to him.”
This was Madanhire's third brush with the law in the past year.
In November 2010 he was detained after publishing a story saying retired police officers and liberation war veterans were being recruited to fill vacant positions in the Zimbabwe Republic Police national force to direct operations during elections.
The story was written by Bulawayo-based Standard reporter, Nqobani Ndlovu, who spent close to a month in jail before being freed by a High Court judge.
Madanhire was arrested again in June with another Standard reporter in connection with a story carried by the weekly over the arrest of Minister of State Jameson Timba, attached to the office of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai.