HARARE - ZIMBABWE'S Attorney Generals office has conceded that the rights of human rights activists abducted late last year were violated upon when the Supreme Court started hearing the constitutional appeal by activist Jestina Mukoko. (Pictured: Jestina Mukoko)A full bench of the Supreme Court heard Thursday a constitutional challenge filed by Mukoko to determine a series of violations of her constitutional rights at the hands of state security agents. Presiding over the matter Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku who sat together Justices Luke Malaba, Wilson Sandura, Vernanda Ziyambi and Paddington Garwe reserved judgment.
State lawyer Fatima Maxwell admitted upon cross examination that Mukokos rights were violated upon when she was arrested by state security agents from 3 to 22 December last year. She conceded that Mukoko might have been subjected to inhumane and degrading treatment, unlawfully detained, unlawfully threatened that she will suffer and deprived of medical treatment.
Maxwell was also forced to admit by one of the judges Luke Malaba that the state security agents have no rights to detain suspects for extended periods other than those defined in the Police Act. Under the Police Act suspects have to be brought to court within 48 hours of the arrest.
The State had wanted to bring to the attention of the court discrepancies in the way Mukoko was tortured but Justice Chidyausiku blocked the bid arguing the state had the opportunity to prove but failed to do so. The applicant (Mukoko) has given her version of what happened. What difficulty will it provide if the AGs office can get the side of the
security agents who arrested her? asked Chidyausiku and the State could not resond.
The facts as they are amount to violations, added Chidyausiku to which Maxwell conceded. Maxwell however said she could not have input from the people who were holding her. If approved the allegations do constitute a violations.
Mukoko, who was represented by advocate Jeremy Gauntlet, want a permanent stay of prosecution and that the charges are dropped. Gauntlet argued in court that his client was not arrested but simply taken away by the state security agents and placed in solitary confinement. He described State Security Minister Nicholas Goches ministerial statement as being evasive and of no use in the proceedings.
Her trial for plotting to unseat President Robert Mugabes previous administration was scheduled for early next month, on the grounds that she is a complainant in a case of kidnapping and abduction. Mukoko, a former staffer at the state-owned Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation and now director of human rights organisation Zimbabwe
Peace Project (ZPP), and some members of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirais MDC party are charged with attempting to recruit people for military training in neighbouring Botswana to overthrow Mugabe.
Mukoko was abducted from her Norton home by state security agents in December 2008 and held incommunicado at various secret locations where her lawyers say she was tortured. The proceedings in the Supreme Court follow the granting of an application filed by human rights lawyers early this year seeking a referral of Mukokos case to the Supreme Court by a Harare Magistrate.
If convicted she faces the death penalty, in a case that has potential to scuttle imbabwes unity government between Mugabe and MDC party leader Tsvangirai.
Post published in: Politics