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Statement on the raid by members of the Zimbabwe Republic Police
Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP)
February 12, 2013

Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP) wishes to inform its partners about the worrying developments that occurred on 11 February 2013 at around 1530 hours. A total of 8 police officers from the Criminal Investigation Department - Law and Order Section from Harare Central police station stormed ZPP offices armed with a search warrant that read in part that there were reasonable grounds that ZPP was in possession of some articles which the organisation intended to use for criminal use in contravention of Section 40 of the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act. The police also suspected that ZPP had contravened the Immigration Act by permitting some unidentified illegal immigrants to enter the country without a work permit and to have smuggled some undisclosed goods in breach of Section 182 (1) of the Customs and Excise Act.

6 police officers proceeded to search the premises in the presence of lawyers. Some of the items seized by the police during this search were;-mobile phone handsets, wind up radios, files with donor information, political violence reports and DVD's.

The police officers advised lawyers that they were going to study the information that they had seized and they left after 3 hours. Noone was arrested during this raid. However, at around 2100hours, ZPP was advised by the security company that provides rapid response reaction services that the alarm at the offices had gone off. ZPP later established that as the security company was leaving the premises after completing their response, at least 8 police officers forcefully gained access to the premises and advised the guard manning the ZPP offices that they wanted to gain access to the Director's office as they believed that the items they were looking for were in that office. The police officers left after they were advised by the guard that he did not have any keys to facilitate access to the offices. Since this occurred yesterday a number of vehicles have been observed parked outside in the vicinity of the ZPP offices.

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