The opposition MDC led by advocate Nelson Chamisa has demanded that the treason case of party Secretary-General, Chalton Hwende be removed from remand.
Hwende was arrested in March last year for his alleged role in the January protests which followed an unprecedented fuel price hike by the government.
It is alleged that Hwende incited violence by his tweet which he has since disowned saying that the State has no evidence to say the twitter account belongs to him.
Below is the MDC’s statement demanding that his case be removed from remand.
MDC demands Hwende case to be placed off remand
The MDC expresses total anger and disappointment at the failure of the Justice Delivery System in the case of our party Secretary-General Honourable Chalton Hwende who has been on remand since the 6th of March 2019 for a non-existent crime.
Today, the 28th February 2020 his lawyer Harrison Nkomo made a brilliant presentation in his application for the accused to be removed from remand which was unanswerable. In any normal country would have resulted in the State conceding and acceding to the request.
But typical of the State under this illegitimate regime, the Prosecutor opposed the Application and sought a postponement in circumstances amounting to harassment and political persecution.
It is almost a year since Honourable Hwende was arrested and the State has reneged on previous undertakings to indict the accused to the High Court each time proffering different excuses.
Today, the State outrageously claimed that they now needed more time to enable them to go to Northern Ireland where Twitter is domiciled to establish whether the Twitter handle in question belongs to Honourable Hwende.
With all due respect that is what should have been done in the first place. Indeed, arresting in order to investigate, is an arrogant abuse of our legal system and at law it’s supposed to be the other way round.
The State would not lose anything by proceeding by way of Summons but in this ‘New Deception’ which masquerades as a ‘new dispensation’, numerous leaders of the MDC and ordinary citizens are being deprived of their liberty on spurious politically motivated charges.
Recently, Honourable Job Sikhala was acquitted by the High Court in Masvingo of a similar charge of Subverting a Constitutional Government which Honorable Hwende is facing. We would have expected the court to give an ex tempore ruling and immediately free Honourable Hwende from his unfair and unjust situation, as the facts were as clear.
Instead, the court surprisingly remanded the matter to Monday the 2nd of March 2020 at 2.15pm for a ruling.
As a people’s party, the MDC prays and indeed expects that justice will prevail, not only for Honourable Hwende, but for all innocent souls who are being unjustly persecuted and unfairly harassed by this ruthless illegitimate regime whose sole pre-occupation is merely the retention of power at all costs.
Innocent Gonese MDC Secretary for Justice and Legal Affairs