SW Radio Africa (London)
Violet Gonda
3 March 2009
High Court Judge Tedious Karwi has thrown out the State's application for leave to appeal and ordered the immediate release of MDC official Roy Bennett. This may now happen on Wednesday.
Last Tuesday the judge granted Bennett bail of US$2 000, told him to surrender his travel documents and report twice a week to Harare Central police's Law and Order section, but the State opposed this.
The State was given seven days to lodge an application for leave to appeal and that matter was heard on Tuesday. Defence Lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa said the State came back arguing for more stringent bail condition.
She told SW Radio Africa: "They were proposing that instead of US$2 000, it should be US$5 000. Instead of reporting twice a week, he should be reporting everyday and that there should be a 40km radius condition imposed." Mtetwa said the Attorney General's office also had a problem with Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai standing as surety for Bennett's bail application.
However the judge dismissed the State's bid to appeal and said the conditions he imposed last Tuesday were fair.
Mtetwa said this means that if the State does not interfere and frustrate the process, Bennett would be a free man on Wednesday, after he appears in the magistrates' court in Mutare. She said the release of a person in custody is an involved process in terms of paperwork. But she hoped the paperwork would be worked on and brought before the magistrate's court on Wednesday morning.
However the defence team representing the jailed MDC Treasurer General and Deputy Minister of Agriculture designate, have expressed concern that State authorities are already trying to complicate and frustrate their client's release.
Mtetwa said: "We have been told that they are thinking of ensuring that the policeman who has his passport becomes unavailable so that the passport is not lodged with the clerk of court, which will result in him not being released."
The MDC official was arrested two weeks ago at Charles Prince airport, on his way to South Africa where he had been living in exile since 2006. He is being charged with the illegal possession of firearms for purposes of committing banditry, terrorism, insurgency and sabotage.
The MDC says: "It remains our well considered view that the charges against Roy Bennett are scandalous, frivolous and vexatious at law, in that they are driven by a vindictive and malicious political vendetta against Roy Bennett."
Meanwhile, the incarceration of the MDC Treasurer General has exposed the alarming and shocking prison conditions facing all inmates in Mutare remand Prison. Mutare Mayor Brian James, who has been visiting Bennett regularly, said the prison is not fit for human habitation and that more than a dozen inmates have died since Bennett was thrown into jail two weeks ago.
The Mayor visited him on Tuesday and said the body of a fellow prisoner who died on Saturday is still lying in the laundry room at the prison.
Prisoners are not getting medical attention and starvation is widespread. Like all prisons countrywide it is extremely overcrowded. It has a capacity of about 160 inmates, but is currently holding at least 300.
MDC officials have said Bennett is being held in the D-Class section of the jail that houses dangerous criminals. But Bennett is said to be in good spirits and has become quite popular with inmates, helping to raise awareness about conditions within the prisons.
One prisoner in particular has much to thank the MDC official for. Elvis Nodangala, a South African, was arrested on October 3rd last year and had yet to be charged or appear in court. The MDC information department said: "At the time of his arrest, he had a broken arm. For the five months or so he has been in prison, he has not received medical attention, and his fellow inmate, Roy Bennett is worried that gangrene may have set in."
It's reported Bennett has raised the plight of the South African with the prison authorities and there is indication Nodangala may also be released on Wednesday.
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If the mindless judge does not want to agree to the prosecutors' very lenient request, then they should ignore him and keep that criminal invader confined. And the prosecutors should exact compensation for the UNPROVOKED invasion of African space and for decades of violence against Africans. In addition, this criminal invader should never be made to hold a position of authority over Africans. If those who are Mentally Deluded by Colonialists (MDC) still want europeans as their leaders after decades of anti-African evils, then they should move to Europe to be their servants and slaves. Africa for Africans!
There are no Africans in Europe laying claim to things European. There shouldn't be any European criminal invader in Zimbabwe laying claim to things African. By any means necessary, criminal invaders should be put out of business for good.
omugabe or what ever you are called,we all know the devil has taken human form and you are a real replica of this devil. Whwt the hell do you write here? You seem to be living in the past and are still feeding on your mum's breast milk. Grow up man!!!! I am not from southern Africa but I do feel the pinch each time these barbaric acts are committed in that once beautiful and envious country of yours. I would have wished the cholera takes a hold on you so that you will shut your mouth for sometime and have positive thinking. Be big in your write ups. May the good God show you the way to a resonable and candid thinking. Stay blessed
Omugabe seems to say that he feels comfortable when he is exploited by an African - here I mean a black!
This should become a big moral issue on the continent. Africa is not exclusively black. There are all types of people on the continent, allbeit a large majority being black.
Where do we end up with such a policy? What do we do when we get rid of whites? This begs the question about what do we do after we get rid of MDC supporters?
Omugabe is preaching for a world of evils. Hope he is a lunatic!
Thanks there are very few around.
Mr Bennett should be kept behind bars, that,s what happen to treasonable offenders the world over. Omugabe, you are absolutely right,a man like Bennett must not be allowed into the Govt of Zimbabwe based on his wicked anti -African past. He,s accused of plotting against the Govt from a neighboring country ,that will be treated as treason anywhere in the world,why should Africa be different? Prem, you are wrong, Africa was entirely Black until your invading and stealing lot (Europeans) descended on her and her people,till today they don,t identify themselves as Africans(Europeans and Arabs) who,s fooling who? The whites who find themselves above the law are advised to go back to their countries of origin,or obey the laws if they are staying,that,s non negotiable.The overtly stubborn ones will pay the price, and be reminded, we,ve not forgotten about our history and how it unfolded before our very eyes and your continued actions will only drive that realization to dangerous levels.The Africans can do what they like with the land of their ancestors and birth,we owe no explanations to no body over how this will be attained.Keep telling as much lies as you want the land will not revert and for your information, there will be further seizures of illegally owned land ,they(Rhodie elements) don,t own these lands and must pay handsomely to use it or go farm in Britain and other parts of Europe where they come from.Thieves, slave traders, genocidals, rapists,pedophilia,s, racists, the party,s coming to an end. Africa is nothing , leave if you can/want ,no, because without Africa, the world will look bleak to them.
Unfortunately, in a democracy, people are innocent until proven guilty and have rights.
AS for "Africa was entirely Black... " I didnt realise they classed Arabs as Black. Silly me.
As for their country of origin, surely if they were born in Zim, that would be Zim. Basic stuff really.
"Thieves, slave traders, genocidals, rapists,pedophilia,s, racists, the party,s coming to an end." Thats Right! MUGABE IS ON THE WAY OUT! AND LETS CELEBRATE THAT!
Heres a question for you... why havent the farms been given to Zimbabwean farm workers who know how to farm? Why have they been given to ministers so that they now remain idle and unproductive exacerbating the current shortage of food. Clearly this is bad management by Mugabe? Clearly Ministers cant farm, yet they now own the farms. Doesnt take a rocket scientist to figure out this is dumb!
Just corruption thats all. Corruption in the heard of the Mugabe government and Corruption in the heart of the mess we see in Zim today.
Sorry Prem, you need to be educated or are you just stirring up trouble by pretending to be ignorant of facts. You keep on going about farm workers this and farm workers that. You and your fellow Anglo saxon land grabbers recruited and employed mostly, in some cases only, immigrant workers from across the Zambezi. And to discourage or stop them from freely intergrating with the local Africans, the immigrants, who were mainly but exclusively, from Malawi and Zambia, were given coloured Situpas (National registration papers). This restricted their movements and forced them to work only on farm estates and mines. If one of them dares to venture into urban areas, eg Harare, they would be arrested and either deported or just get a few claps from the BSAP constables. They were invariably caught up in the police stop and searches at strategic points in urban areas, eg by the bridge underpass to Magaba or MarketSquare in Harare. So actually, Prem, the Mugabe regime removed this hassle and discriminatory practices of you white settlers and made these immigrant people free to roam and live wherever they wished. They are now enjoy Equality and Fraternity with their fellow citizens. Pamberi ne 1980! However the nature of the Chimurenga war was that those living on settler farms did not experience the full impact of the disruption and crudity of the cruelty of the Rhodesian farmer soldiers and their rightwing mercenary cousins ... financed by you know who. Long after 1980, some of these liberated immigrant farm workers yearn for the days on the farms of Bassi Kamoto or Bassi Chikwepa ... becoming a fifth column as it were. It is the usefulness, to you and your ilk, of this FIFTH column that make you now and then call for the re-instllation of the immigrant worker status, MAKWEREKWERE in SouthAfrican parlance. The question is, do you want them to return and continue to be farm labourers or you want them to take over the farms or what do you have in mind??? Maybe you are just being your usual self .... a trouble maker and agent provocateur on behalf of missionaries and displaced settlers. You can do it ... l mean let go and leave Zimbabwe 100% to Africans. You did it through out SoutheEast Asia, eg India. You did not do it in Ireland, look, the Irish have been fighting you for the past 700 years. Let go! Do a neat job. Peace and Mwari bless you, Prem.
Rafil, You are absolutely correct: Whatever Africans want to do with their indigenous lands in their indigenous space is their prerogative. The clear and present concern is to rid the Continent of the racist and criminal invaders, by any means necessary. If the judge insists on releasing this criminal invader back into the society, then Africans should take him out along with those of his ilk. As for those who are hoping to celebrate Mugabe's departure, they are self-deluded; because it is the magnanimity of Mugabe that is preventing a more complete and crushing blow to the criminal invaders who continue to cling to African indigenous Lands, Wealth and Resources.
There are no Africans in Europe or on the Arabian Peninsula laying claim to those lands. And alert Africans recognize that they have their hands full in cleansing the Continent of the criminal invaders who devilishly imposed themselves on African UNPROVOKED!
It is obvious from his posts that Rafil is really just a simple and gullible imbecile trying to regurgitate the tripe that Mugabe and his cohort have been feeding him in order to mask their failings of the people of zimbabwe. Rafil does not even pretend to fully understand what he is saying.
Just read this statement and see if you can discern the rationale behind it.....'The whites who find themselves above the law are advised to go back to their countries of origin.....' Is this a case of linguistic failure or of one getting caught up in their own underpants?