Zimbabwe journalists face trial for 'defaming Mugabe'

Zimbabwe journalists face trial for 'defaming Mugabe'

MULEYA

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By Agencies

FOUR journalists will go on trial in Zimbabwe in January on charges of defaming President Robert Mugabe in a report that said he had used a plane from the national airways for his holidays, a court ruled on Monday.

Editors Iden Wetherell and Vincent Kahiya and reporters Dumisani Muleya and Itai Dzamara from the privately owned Zimbabwe Independent are to return to court on January 10 for the start of the trial, ruled the magistrate's court.

They are accused of criminally defaming Mugabe in a story published in January this year that said the leader took a wide-bodied Boeing 767-200 Air Zimbabwe aircraft to "ferry him around the Far East" during his holiday.

The article said Mugabe and his family had flown to Malaysia from Johannesburg on a scheduled commercial flight, but the president later ordered that a plane be sent to Malaysia to carry him around the region.

Magistrate Omega Mugumbate said: "This court is of the view that there is reasonable suspicion that an offence was committed."

The journalists, who were arrested in January and locked up for 48 hours before being released a 20 000 dollar (about R25) bail each, had applied to have the charges dropped.
Sapa
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