The High Court has confirmed that two Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) activists Joanah Mamombe and Cecilia Chimbiri did not lie when they reported that they were abducted and tortured by alleged state security agents in 2020.
This comes after their acquittal on charges of publishing falsehoods prejudicial to the state after they were abducted and tortured in 2020.
One of their colleagues, Netsai Marova, fled the country to Norway for her studies.
They were accused of breaking Covid-19 regulations by holding a demonstration in Harare two years ago calling for government to improve the welfare of ordinary citizens. They were abducted from police custody and found in Bindura, 86 kilometers from the capital city, after four days.
Despite visible physical bruises on their bodies, the trio was arrested and charged for communicating falsehoods prejudicial to the state by allegedly faking their abduction and torture.
Chimbiri and Mamombe’s lawyers, the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) confirmed their acquittal.
“Zimbabwe High Court has vindicated 2 victims of torture, Harare West MP Hon. Joanah Mamombe and Cecilia Chimbiri, one of opposition CCC party leaders by acquitting them on charges of communicating falsehoods for allegedly faking their abduction and torture in 2020,” ZLHR said.
In her ruling, High Court judge Justice Priscilla Munangati Manongwa accused the lower court of failing to discharge the two at the close of State’s case and that the case was marred with malice and falsehoods.
“The misapplication of the law by the court coupled by the failure to find that the evidence placed before the court did not suffice to put the applicants to their defence, makes the decision irrational.
“Thus as stated in the foregoing paragraphs the decision of the first respondent (Vongai Guuriro Muchuchuti) is found to be grossly unreasonable, irrational, characterized by bias and malice and cannot be in accordance with real and substantial justice.
“The applicants cannot be pushed into a defence case to supplement the inadequacies of the State case and hope that in the process they incriminate themselves,” said the judge.
She added: “It is not for the court to try and prop up a crumbling case, a court has to acquit in the absence of evidence to support an essential element of a charge, or where the evidence is manifestly unreliable that no reasonable court can act on it.
“The application has merit and therefore succeeds. In that regard the applicants are entitled to a discharge at the close of the State case.
“In the result it is ordered as follows: that the application succeeds.
“That the first respondent’s decision in CRB 45-46/20 handed down on 12 September 2022 wherein she dismissed applicants application for discharge at the close of the State case be and is hereby set aside and substituted with the following:
“The accused persons Joana Mamombe and Cecilia Revai Chimbiri be and are hereby found not guilty, discharged and acquitted at the close of the State case.”