By Staff Reporter
Arrested Sunday Mail editor Edmund Kudzayi is being accused of running the Baba Jukwa facebook page according to a charge sheet compiled by the state and seen by Nehanda Radio. Kudzayi appeared in court on Saturday.
“Sometime in April 2013, the accused connived with his elder brother Philip Tawanda Kudzayi and others who are still at large and hatched a plan to overthrow the Government of Zimbabwe by unconstitutional means in the run up to the 31st July 2013 Zimbabwe General elections,” read the charge sheet.
“Accused created a gmail account called [email protected] using an Econet Line 0771 446 541 registered to Philip Tawanda Kudzayi which line is being used by him. The said gmail account was used to create a Facebook account called Baba Jukwa.
“The accused planned and organized with other accused persons calling themselves, The Gunda Nleya Brigade and Zimbabwe Revolutionary Army, to overthrow the Government through waging war and urged people to join the Zimbabwe Revolutionary Army.
“The accused posted articles on the Baba Jukwa Facebook page which encouraged rebellion against the Government if the said election is stolen. They also posted articles to the effect that they had a Dare Rechimurenga in place and that a team was on the ground studying the situation in Zimbabwe.”
Kudzayi is facing charges of insurgency, terrorism, banditry, sabotage, subverting a constitutionally elected government and not securing 13 firearms. Four 9mm pistols were allegedly found at his home and 9x9mm pistols in his drawer in the office.
The charges were later altered to saying Kudzayi had 13 bullets not guns. 4 bullets on top of his home table and 9 in the office drawer both unsecured, thats the firearms charge, his gun was licenced.
He is also charged with undermining the authority of the president over an article he wrote in the Zimbabwe Mail online publication (7 August 2008) in which he said Mugabe was a dictator who had committed gross human rights abuses and had stolen the 2008 elections in Zimbabwe.
Kudzayi was remanded in custody and his bail hearing has been set for Monday.
Recently President Robert Mugabe branded Information Minister Jonathan Moyo a ‘devil incarnate’, accusing him of appointing editors to state-owned newspapers who were sympathetic to the opposition.
Early Thursday morning armed police officers raided Herald House and went to Kudzayi’s office after visiting his home.
The police demanded access to Kudzayi’s office and took a laptop Mac Book Pro, IMAQ laptop, Kia cellphone, white charger adapters, a power bank, a flash stick, and an “MDC-T debate disc” for April 29, 2014. They also confiscated power cables, a computer CPU, a monitor, a keyboard and a mouse.
Moyo on Friday claimed that the arrest of one of his sidekicks, in Edmund Kudzayi, was an indication that there is rule of law in Zimbabwe.
“There is nothing special to say about what is happening, to address members of the practicing fraternity, except to say what is happening is very serious indeed from whatever perspective one may look at it and this is with respect to the situation at Zimpapers and the arrest of the Sunday Mail editor,” Moyo said.
“I think all rational fair minded people will understand that when police take action or when law enforcement agents take action, it should give us from a legal constitutional point of view some relief that at least the rule of law or the course of justice is taking place.
“It’s much easier for everyone concerned especially when we take into account the fact that there is no individual and indeed no institution that is above the law. That is always far better than sitting to resolve an issue through other means,” Moyo said at a graduation ceremony for a Bulawayo based journalism school.
“That is the essence of a constitutional democracy that a matter, however, important is ultimately resolved in terms of the law and in this connection I am very pleased that Zimpapers have made it very clear that they are a law abiding institution and that they are going to fully cooperate with the law enforcement authorities in terms of the law,” Moyo added.
It is however widely reported that Kudzayi as editor of the African Aristocrat blog based in the United Kingdom penned a 2010 article claiming that Mugabe’s daughter Bona had been raped in Singapore after a student party.
According to the report Bona filed rape charges against two Tanzanian students studying in Singapore at the time. The two students who were put under police investigation however insisted that she had consensual sex with them.
The report claimed that Bona who studied under the name Tracy Guvamombe alleged that she was a victim of drink spiking and rape at a student party held in the upmarket Faber Park neighbourhood.
One of the accused was identified as the 27-year-old son of a Tanzanian business tycoon. The suspects allegedly invited Bona to the lavish party and plied her with spiked wines and went on to have sex with her in one of the bedrooms.
The claims infuriated the First Family. Grace Mugabe later publicly addressed the allegations when commenting about Bona’s prospective nuptials in October last year. The First Lady denied her daughter was raped, proudly adding that she would marry a chaste maiden.
