HARARE – Seventy-three CCC activists including the former Harare senator Jameson Timba will stand trial whilst coming from prison after the Harare High Court on Wednesday threw out their appeals against the refusal of bail by a lower court.
A 17-year-old boy who was arrested with the group at Timba’s Avondale home on June 16 was granted bail and released into the custody of his parents on the judge’s orders.
They are accused of holding an unsanctioned gathering after they had converged to commemorate International Youth Day held annually to mark the Soweto Uprising.
“In the end, all having been said and done, my conclusion is that there was no misdirection in the court aquo’s overall assessment of the issues and its finding that the appellants were not proper candidates for admission to bail,” Justice Munamato Mutevedzi said in a written judgement.
“As stated earlier the only appellant for whom the appeal can succeed is Maxwell Sande because of his age,” said Mutevedzi in his ruling.
Harare magistrate Ruth Moyo, in denying the activists bail, said they were likely to reoffend or take flight because of the seriousness of the charges.
“The discretion of the trial magistrate, which as demonstrated, she exercised quite judiciously, must stand. It disbars me from interfering with her judgment,” said Mutevedzi, who also made the observation that 57 of the activists were unemployed which he said led him conclude that there is a “real possibility of someone taking advantage of young men and women from the suburbs of Chitungwiza, Epworth and Hatcliffe and initiating them into flames of violence.”
The Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights whose lawyers are representing the group said it would file at appeal at the Supreme Court.
