Court rules activists must stay in jail as Tsvangirai deadline looms

Court rules activists must stay in jail as Tsvangirai deadline looms

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Posted to the web: 31/12/2008 15:42:15
FORMER ZBC news anchor Jestina Mukoko and 15 other human rights activists were ordered Wednesday to remain in prison over an alleged plot to topple President Robert Mugabe, heightening fears for a faltering unity accord.

Magistrate Mishrod Guvamombe did not rule on the merits of the charges against the activists, but said they should remain in custody pending a Supreme Court hearing on their case.

"This matter remains to be decided in the Supreme Court and the accused cannot be released," he said.

Two other activists facing lesser charges were freed. The charges against Mukoko -- the director of the Zimbabwe Peace Project -- and the 15 others has highlighted Zimbabwe's deepening political crisis more than three months after Mugabe signed a power-sharing deal with opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai.

Tsvangirai, who is expected in Zimbabwe anytime after spending two months in Botswana, has said he will quit unity government talks if the activists are not released by midnight on New Year's Eve -- which now appears unlikely following Guvamombe's ruling.

Some of the activists are opposition supporters who disappeared in late October, with authorities repeatedly denying that they were in custody until they began appearing in court last week.

Mukoko had been seized from her home on December 3 by armed men who identified themselves as police, and two members of her staff were taken away from their office days later.

They have been accused together with 28 members of Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party of recruiting anti-government plotters.

Mukoko's peace group recorded cases of alleged violence against opposition supporters ahead of contested elections in June. Her detention has raised particular alarm among international rights groups and western nations which have accused Mugabe's government of intimidation and harassment.

Their lawyers claim the activists were beaten after their arrest, and Guvamombe on Monday ordered authorities to allow doctors to visit them in prison. Lawyer Andrew Makoni said the legal team joined doctors on a visit to the activists at Chikurubi prison on the outskirts of Harare.

"We accompanied the doctors to see them but we have not yet met the doctors to establish their findings," he told AFP.

The MDC has insisted that the detention of its supporters would further hamper stalled talks with the ruling party on forming a unity government. MDC leader Tsvangirai led in a first-round presidential vote over Mugabe in March, when the opposition also seized a majority in parliament for the first time since Zimbabwe's independence from Britain in 1980.

The result touched off a deadly wave of political violence that Amnesty International says has left at least 180 dead, mostly MDC supporters. Tsvangirai pulled out of a run-off in June, accusing Mugabe's government of orchestrating the violence.

Mugabe, Tsvangirai and rival MDC leader Arthur Mutambara signed a deal to form a unity government in September. The 84-year-old Mugabe remains as president while Tsvangirai would take the new post of prime minister. But they have so far failed to implement the pact despite repeated interventions by regional leaders.

Talks have stalled over disputes about how to divide key cabinet posts and other powerful government jobs. Amid the political deadlock, Zimbabwe's humanitarian crisis has deepened. Inflation was last estimated at 231 million percent in July, but outside economists now believe it is many times higher. Chronic food shortages have worsened, with nearly half the population requiring emergency food aid, according to the United Nations.

A breakdown in sanitation, and the government's inability to repair pipes or properly treat the water supply, has sparked a crushing cholera epidemic that has killed more than 1,500 people and infected nearly 30,000 since August, according to the World Health Organisation. - Staff Reporter/AFP
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