18 months on, Chin’ono still remanded for exposing Rushwaya corruption
Its now 18 months since journalist Hopewell Chin’ono was arrested and put on remand for exposing that Henrietta Rushwaya (President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s niece) was going to “corruptly” get free bail after being caught trying to smuggle 6kgs of gold to Dubai.
Chin’ono tweeted that Rushwaya was going to be granted bail unopposed after her arrest in October 2020.
His claim was later substantiated when the state consented to bail. The magistrate, however, blasted the state and forced it to reconsider.
But Chin’ono was arrested for obstructing the course of justice. The state has spent almost two years saying it was doing extra-territorial investigations with Twitter.
On Wednesday Chin’ono said the state had abandoned the Twitter claim but he is still remanded out of custody as the state continues to do “docket management”.
“I am back at court today for the case where I was arrested in 2020 for exposing a corrupt arrangement for Henrietta Rushwaya to get bail unopposed,” he said.
“The State has been saying it was waiting for a letter from twitter when we applied for removal from remand in February.
“We exposed that the State was lying that it wrote to twitter.
“The magistrate delayed ruling strangely saying the police should also give their position. Today the State has abandoned its Twitter letter strategy, it now says it wants another 6 weeks to peruse the docket.”
“It says it wants to seek legal opinion on the docket, this is 18 months after my arrest, proving that this and other arrests were merely acts of political persecution!
“My lawyers are opposed to further remand and are asking the magistrate to make a ruling on our Feb application.
“The tactic that they want to peruse the docket is not new, the State used the same trick in November where it asked for 3 months to do what it called ‘docket management’.
“The magistrate has ruled in favor of the State giving them their request for further remand.”
Chin’ono is facing two more cases of incitement to commit public violence and publishing falsehoods. Nehanda Radio
