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Mtetwa
launches fresh freedom bid
Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR)
March 21, 2013
High Court Judge
Justice Joseph Musakwa will on Friday 22 March 2013 preside over
an appeal filed by lawyers representing Beatrice Mtetwa seeking
to set aside the dismissal
of her bail application by Harare Provincial Magistrate Marehwanazvo
Gofa.
The lawyers
launched a fresh freedom bid for the top human rights lawyer on
Thursday 21 March 2013 after filing an appeal in the High Court
against the decision of Magistrate Marehwanazvo.
Magistrate Gofa
on Wednesday 20 March 2013 dismissed Mtetwa’s bail application
which had been filed pending her trial proceedings. The Magistrate
based her dismissal of the bail application on the basis that if
released on bail, Mtetwa would interfere with police investigations
which were reportedly in their “infancy” as well as
cause “commotion” as she had purportedly done when she
was arrested on Sunday 17 March 2013. Magistrate Gofa ruled that
the said commotion would hinder the police from carrying out their
investigations.
But in their
application, Mtetwa’s lawyers Advocate Thabani Mpofu, Harisson
Nkomo and Dzimbabwe Chimbga argued that Magistrate Gofa seriously
misdirected herself by refusing to admit the human rights lawyer
to bail and that her ruling must be set aside on appeal.
The lawyers
proposed that Mtetwa should be freed on bail on terms that binds
her to deposit US$100 with the Clerk of Court at Harare Magistrates
Court and not interfere with evidence and if need be enter into
any such additional recognizances as the High Court may deem desirable.
Justice Musakwa
will hear the bail application at 09:00 am on Friday 22 March 2013.
Mtetwa was arrested
on Sunday 17 March 2013 and charged with contravening Section 184
(1) (g) of the Criminal
Law (Codification and Reform) Act for allegedly defeating or
obstructing the course of justice.
Visit the ZLHR
fact
sheet
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