HARARE – Opposition leader Jacob Ngarivhume, charged with participating in an unlawful gathering, will remain in jail after he was on Friday denied bail by Harare magistrate Farai Gwatima.
The Transform Zimbabwe president is jointly charged with Kelvin Gonde and they also face an extra charge of disorderly conduct.
Gwatima denied the two bail ruling that they are likely to abscond given what the magistrate said was the gravity of their offences.
The magistrate also said the state had managed to demonstrate “compelling reasons warranting the continued detention of the two awaiting trial.”
They two are alleged to have been among Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) activists who were arrested at party’s top politician Jameson Timba’s Harare home June 16 this year for allegedly participating in an unlawful gathering.
The investigating officer, Victor Mukohwa said Ngarivhume and Gonde were positively identified attacking police officers who had invaded the activists in the quiet neighbourhood of Avondale to arrest the activists.
They were arrested earlier this month and have been in custody since then.
The state says 30 witnesses who are police officers are lined up to testify against them.
They are among nearly a hundred activists and rights defenders arrested since June this year under a widely condemned renewed state crackdown on some vocal opposition activists and human rights defenders.
Nearly all the activists who were arrested have been denied bail.
