POLICE officers from the Law and Order section were yesterday hunting for two Voice of the People (VOP) radio station trustees, Nhlanhla Ngwenya and Arnold Tsunga.
Otto Saki, of the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR), yesterday told The Standard that police descended at the homes of trustees of the privately-owned radio station.
At around 10AM yesterday, about half a dozen plain clothes police officers went to Ngwenya's house, where the maid told them he had gone to the shops. Two of them entered the house, while the rest went to look for Ngwenya at the shops. When it became evident Ngwenya would not be back soon, the officers ordered the maid to call Ngwenya's wife and inform her they were confiscating a television and radio set.
When The Standard news crew arrived at the house, the officers had just left but without taking anything. At Tsunga's house, they took away a driver and a gardener.
"They arrested ZLHR driver, Anesu Kamba, and Arnold (Tsunga)'s gardener." said Saki yesterday afternoon. "I have been to a number of police stations, but I cannot find them."
In December last year, police officers raided VOP offices in Harare where they arrested three reporters, and later, the executive director of the station, John Masuku.
Meanwhile our Mutare correspondent reports that Sydney Saize, a Manicaland-based journalist arrested last Wednesday on suspicion of violating the draconian Zimbabwean media laws, was released from police custody yesterday morning after the State indicated it would proceed by way of summons.
Saize, a former reporter of The Daily News and The Eastern Star newspapers in Mutare, both banned by the government, was arrested in the city centre on Wednesday afternoon and detained by members of the Criminal Investigation Department.
His lawyer, Innocent Gonese, said yesterday he had successfully made an urgent application "to compel the State to bring" Saize before the court. The State, he said, was "dragging its feet" in bringing the matter before the courts, saying further investigations were under way.
"Saize spent three nights in police custody and there was a likelihood he would spend another two until Monday morning before appearing in court," Gonese told The Standard shortly after the reporter walked out a free man.
