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OpenFake Abduction Case: Mamombe And Chimbiri Acquitted
Joanna Mamombe, a lawmaker for the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC), and party activist Cecilia Chimbiri have been acquitted by the High Court in a case where they were accused of publishing falsehoods.
The women were charged following a 2020 incident where they claimed to have been abducted and tortured by suspected state agents. The activists were arrested at a police roadblock after staging a flash anti-government demonstration in Warren Park, Harare. Mamombe and Chimbiri, together with Netsai Marova who has since fled the country, were put in police custody at Harare Central Police Station. However, they were later discovered injured and soiled in Bindura, 70km outside Harare, after their friends and party raised an alarm about their disappearance.
The state accused them of lying about their abduction to harm the government’s reputation, arguing that CCTV footage showed them in Belgravia during the time they claimed to have been abducted. Authorities, however, did not explain how the trio escaped from police custody.
In court, Joanna Mamombe and Cecilia Chimbiri’s lawyer, Alec Muchadehama, accused the State of punishing his clients due to the hype their case received on social media. The women were acquitted after appealing against magistrate Vongai Guuriro Muchuchuti’s ruling that they had a case to answer and should proceed to a defence hearing.
In delivering the ruling, High Court judge Justice Priscilla Munangati Manongwa said the lower court had erred in failing to discharge the women at the close of the State’s case. The judge criticised the State’s case, saying it was marred with malice and falsehoods. The judge also highlighted that it was unconstitutional and against the principles of the court to push the applicants into a defence case to supplement the inadequacies of the State’s case and hope that in the process they incriminate themselves. The judge ordered the women’s discharge at the close of the State’s case.
The judge ruled that the State’s case was marred with malice and falsehoods and that the women should be found not guilty and acquitted at the close of the State case.
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