Timba and 74 CCC activists denied bail, judge says ‘they were not a random assembly’
Opposition Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) interim leader Jameson Timba and 74 party activists will remain in custody after the High Court dismissed their bail appeal, citing that “they were not a random assembly”.
Timba and his co-accused (initially 79 were arrested in total) were denied bail at the Harare Magistrates’ Courts following their arrests on June 16 at the former Cabinet Minister’s house in Avondale.
They are accused of holding a political gathering that was not sanctioned by the police. They have so far spent 31 days in pre-trial incarceration.
One of the accused who was considered a minor was released into the custody of his parents by the judge, Justice Munamato Mutevedzi said:
“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.
“As stated earlier the only appellant for whom the appeal can succeed is Maxwell Sande because of his age.
“That I may have determined the matter differently is a non-issue. What is material is that I didn’t find any misdirection in the decision of the magistrate’s’ court.
“The discretion of the trial magistrate, which as demonstrated, she exercised quite judiciously must stand. It disbars me from interfering with her judgment.
“In the circumstances I order as follows: a. The appeal against the refusal to admit appellant MAXWELL SANDE to bail by the magistrates’ Court sitting at Harare on 27 June 2024 be and is hereby allowed.
“The decision of the Magistrates Court is accordingly set aside and substituted with the following:
“The appellant Maxwell Sande is released into the custody of his father Cecil Sande National Identity …. who shall ensure that at all materials times the appellant shall abide by the conditions of his attendance at court or any other that may from time to time be set by the court.
“The appeal against the refusal to admit appellants one (1)- forty-two (42) and forty-four (44) to seventy-five (75) to bail by the Magistrates’ Court sitting at Harare on 27 June 2024 be and is hereby dismissed in its entirety.
“This is an appeal against the decision of the Magistrates’ Court sitting at Harare refusing all the seventy- four (74) appellants admission to bail. The decision was delivered on 27 June 2024.
“The demographics of the appellants is interesting. They were not a random assembly. Instead, they hail from different but clearly defined clusters predominantly the suburbs of Chitungwiza, Epworth and Hatcliffe which account for almost three quarters of the appellants.
“Equally noteworthy is the fact that fifty-seven of the appellants are not formally employed and that over sixty of them are aged below forty years.
“They are of the same political persuasion having all admitted their affiliation to a political outfit called the CCC. The appellants made a combined bail application in the court a quo.
“In their appeal in this court, which again was prosecuted as one, they raised several grounds of appeal to which I will advert later in the judgment,” the judge noted.
From the initial 79 activists arrested, a total of four have been released, leaving 75 in custody.
Meanwhile exiled democracy and human rights campaigner Netsai Marova (29), who was abducted and tortured for 36 hours by state agents alongside her colleagues Joanah Mamombe and Cecilia Chimbiri in May 2020 has set up a petition to highlight the plight of the Avondale 75.
Government critics believe that the activists are being illegally denied as an example to others not to plan any protests ahead of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Summit in August.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa is reportedly afraid of being embarrassed during the summit, which will see him being crowned the chairman of the regional bloc.
