A second bail application for jailed diamond researcher Farai Maguwu has been delayed, after the Attorney General's office said it wasn't ready for Wednesday's court hearing.

Lawyers representing Maguwu returned to the Harare High Court on Wednesday to appeal the Court's decision last week to deny their client bail. Attorney Tinoziva Bere told SW Radio Africa that the appeal will now only be heard on Friday, after representatives from the Attorney General's office said they needed more time.

Maguwu has now spent more than a month behind bars after his arrest in early June. He is being charged with communicating so-called 'falsehoods' deemed prejudicial to the state and if found guilty faces up to 20 years behind bars.

Since his incarceration, Maguwu has raised complaints over the state's continued deprivation of his rights. According to his lawyers, the rights activist has been denied access to adequate medication and medical examination, been unlawfully moved from Harare Remand Prison to the notorious Matapi Police station in Mbare and complained of attempts by the state to impede on his rights to remain silent and to access legal representation. The Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition said on Tuesday that "the police are deliberately stalling investigations directly impacting on Maguwu's right to liberty as enshrined in the Zimbabwean constitution and regional and international statutes including the African Charter on Human and People's Rights."

"It seems the state, through the courts and police force are deliberately stalling progress in Maguwu's case to use him as an example of the fate which awaits any citizen who dares to question or seek to expose the looting of diamonds in Chiadzwa and the horrendous human rights abuses attached to it. Maguwu's crime is not that he 'communicated or published falsehoods' but that he dared to challenge the one source of power which ZANU PF still possesses, the Marange diamonds," the Crisis Coalition said in a statement.

The activist heads the Mutare based Centre for Research and Development (CRD) which has exposed the ongoing abuse and corruption at the Chiadzwa diamond fields. Rights groups have been calling for Zimbabwe's suspension from international diamond trade over the abuses. But the international trade watchdog, the Kimberley Process, last year decided to allow Zimbabwe more time to fall in line with minimum trade standards.

A set of guidelines were established to reach this goal, including the appointment of an approved monitor, to report back to Kimberley Process members on Zimbabwe's efforts. That monitor Abbey Chikane, has since recommended that diamonds from Chiadzwa be given the legal certification from the Kimberley Process to allow their sale. This despite evidence given by Maguwu and other human rights groups that abuses are in fact continuing.

Chikane himself has been fingered as the instigator of Maguwu's arrest, which happened shortly after a confidential meeting between the two men. Maguwu has said Chikane 'shopped' him to the police and it is widely believed that Maguwu's ongoing detention is a deliberate attempt to silence him.

In the mean time, calls for Maguwu's release have continued to grow. The Crisis Coalition on Tuesday urged the government to unconditionally and immediately release Maguwu, echoing the same call made by rights group, Amnesty International. Another group, Global Witness, which has worked with Maguwu in the past, has also called for Chikane to be suspended as the monitor to Zimbabwe, saying his credibility is compromised.

"Maguwu's arrest is directly related to the information he handed in confidence to Abbey Chikane," said Global Witness campaigner Annie Dunnebacke said. "The whole monitoring system should be suspended just as Zimbabwe should be suspended from international trade."