Zimbabwean human rights lawyer Obey Shava was severely assaulted and left for dead by at least four men in Harare on Wednesday evening.
ZimLive reported that the incident took place outside Selborne Routledge Primary School shortly after 7 PM.
Advocate Thabani Mpofu, who was briefed on the attack, said Shava “was viciously attacked this evening by four men who broke his legs and left him battling for his life.”
A vendor who witnessed the attack told ZimLive that Shava was attacked by at least four men driving in a green Mercedes Benz sedan and a Toyota GD6.
According to Mpofu, Shava received a call from a man claiming to have an urgent legal matter and he had agreed to meet the individual in the Belvedere area, where he intended to drop off a lawyer colleague.
He was attacked him soon after he came out of his car and the assailants also took his phone, Mpofu said.
The Law Society of Zimbabwe (LSZ) condemned the attack on Shava and denounced the “arbitrary use of violence”. It said:
The Law Society of Zimbabwe has learnt with shock of the brutal attack on its member and human rights lawyer Obey Shava in Harare last night, 5th July 2023.
While we are still trying to gather details of the incident the Law Society of Zimbabwe is disturbed by the gory pictures circulating on social media and condemn in the strongest terms this arbitrary use of violence.
Shava is one of the lawyers under the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights who represented CCC activists Joanna Mamombe, Cecelia Chimbiri and Netsai Marova in court.
The trio was arrested in 2020 and charged with falsifying their abduction by state security agents.
Mamombe and Chimbiri were acquitted of the charge on Tuesday, while Marova is out of the country.
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