A MUTARE man faces jail after he was overheard claiming President Robert Mugabe is infertile because he was castrated.

Maxwell Mutsetse, 30, was arrested after making the cheeky remark within earshot of a local Zanu PF youth leader who promptly reported the alleged insult to the police.

Mutsetse appeared in court this week charged with undermining Mugabe's authority and was released on US$50 bail.

Prosecutor Fletcher Karombe told a Mutare Magistrates Court that Mutsetse was overhead saying in Shona: "President Mugabe vakatenwa, handina basa neZanu PF ndinosapota MDC uyezve President wangu ndiMorgan Tsvangirai", which the State interpreted to mean, "President Robert Mugabe was castrated; I don’t care about Zanu PF, my President is Morgan Tsvangirai".

Mutsetse was charged with contravening section 33 of the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act, which makes it illegal to criticise or undermine the President.

His case is the latest in a string of prosecutions against several people and organisations charged with allegedly criticising the 88-year-old Zanu PF leader.

In December MDC-T legislator, Lynette Kerenyi, was briefly jailed after she was accused of insulting Mugabe at a rally where she criticised his stance on homosexuality.

The following month a bookshop owner was arrested under suspicion of undermining the President after he stocked copies of Tsvangirai's autobiography at his store in the town of Victoria Falls.

Again, last August private security guard Zebediah Mpofu was held by police and warned he faced a year in prison after he allegedly joked about the state of Mugabe’s health.

And a couple of months before that a police officer was detained for two weeks after he was caught using the Mugabe’s private toilet at the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair (ZITF) in Bulawayo.