HARARE – Prominent human rights lawyer Obey Shava was “savagely attacked” by suspected state security agents and left for dead on Wednesday evening, colleagues said.
The incident took place outside Selborne Routledge Primary School in Harare shortly after 7PM.
Advocate Thabani Mpofu, who was briefed on the attack, said: “He was viciously attacked this evening by four men who broke his legs and left him battling for his life.
“The safety of our citizens must be the top priority on the state’s agenda, particularly during this crazy season.”
A ZimLive correspondent who arrived at the scene moments after the attack and found the lawyer writhing in agony on the ground was told by a street vendor who witnessed the incident that Shava was attacked by at least four men driving in a green Mercedes Benz sedan and a Toyota GD6.
Mpofu said Shava received a call from a man claiming to have an urgent legal matter and he had agreed to meet the individual in the Belvedere area, where he intended to drop off a lawyer colleague.
“They attacked him soon after he came out of his car. They also took his phone,” Mpofu said.
Shava is one of the lawyers under the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights who represented Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) activists Joanna Mamombe, Cecelia Chimbiri and Netsai Marova when they were dragged to court in 2020 charged with falsifying their abduction by state security agents.
Mamombe and Chimbiri were acquitted of the charge on Tuesday.
The attack on a lawyer who has been steadfast in representing opposition activists accused of crimes against the state has raised the spectre of a bloody campaign to Zimbabwe’s general elections set for August 23.
In a statement, the Law Society of Zimbabwe said it had “learnt with shock of the brutal attack on one of its members.”
“While we are still trying to gather details of the incident, the Law Society of Zimbabwe is disturbed by the gory pictures circulating on social media and condemns in the strongest terms this arbitrary use of violence.”
