Court orders release of 6 MDC detainees

By Lance Guma
20 June 2007

The High Court on Tuesday ordered the release of 6 out of 21 MDC activists still locked up in remand prison for over 2 months. Justice Lawrence Kamocha ordered the release of Piniel Denga, Philip Mabika, Peter Chikwati, Jacob Muvavi, Raymond Bake and Arthur Mhizha while granting them Z$10 million bail each. The police however refused to release 3 out of the 6, arguing that Mhizha, Chikwati and Mabika still faced separate charges.

Those released were ordered to report three times a week to the CID law and order section. Glen View MP Paul Madzore and 17 others, including Morgan Komichi who is critically ill, remain in custody. The Mugabe regime had ordered the arrest of several MDC activists on what commentators described as flimsy charges of engaging in terrorist activities. A series of suspicious petrol bomb attacks were unleashed on police stations and other government targets, in what is thought to have been a well worked out excuse to justify the crackdown on the opposition.

Over 600 activists are said to have been either abducted, beaten, tortured or hospitalized in 4 months of unrelenting brutality. An aborted prayer rally by the Save Zimbabwe Campaign in Highfields set the mayhem off after police used brute force to crush it. Activist Gift Tandare and cameraman Edward Chikomba were murdered while the body of a third activist was discovered weeks after the rally.