By Kitsepile Nyathi, HARARE Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe's High Court has cleared prominent journalist Hopewell Chin’ono, who was facing charges of incitement over tweets deemed critical of President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government.
High Court Judge Siyabona Musithu on Monday
quashed the incitement charges against Chin’ono, who was arrested in July last
year ahead of street protests against government corruption that were brutally
crushed by the military.
Justice Musithu said the police were “on a
fishing expedition” when they arrested Chin’ono and that the charges against
him were unclear.
“It means my arrest and my case were trumped up
as I have always argued,” Mr Chin’ono tweeted after his acquittal.
“I spent the past 15 months in jails and courts
for something that I didn’t do. It was cruel and tragic. This is the second
case thrown out by the High Court from my three arrests.”
Mr Chin’ono, a fierce government critic, has
been arrested at least three times in the last three years for sharing
information that is deemed critical of the government.
He spent at least 40 days in prison for the
incitement charges before he was released on bail.
The journalist has also been acquitted on two
separate charges of communicating falsehoods prejudicial to the State.
He is yet to be charged on a case where he is
accused of obstructing justice after he exposed an alleged plot to set free a
nephew of President Mnangagwa, who was arrested at the country’s main
international airport for trying to smuggle gold to Dubai.
The President is accused of clamping down on
critics using draconian laws that were enacted during the Robert Mugabe era.
He is also accused of going back on his
promises to return Zimbabwe to democracy after years of authoritarianism under
the late Mugabe.
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