Former Zengeza West MP, Job Sikhala, has been fined US$500 by Harare regional magistrate Feresi Chakanyuka for communicating falsehoods.
The magistrate also gave Sikhala a nine-month wholly suspended sentence on the condition he does not commit a similar offence in the next five years.
Sikhala was arrested and charged in 2021 after he tweeted that a junior police officer had killed a baby with a baton in Harare.
Chakanyuka delivered the ruling this Thursday, 15 February after convicting Sikhala of publishing falsehoods prejudicial to the state on Wednesday last week.
Former Mt Pleasant MP, Fadzayi Mahere was convicted of publishing falsehoods in April 2023 after she allegedly posted the same video on X (formerly Twitter). She was fined US$500.
Amnesty International condemned Mahere’s conviction saying it was an assault on freedom of expression, and the government was using a non-existent law to prosecute her.
Sikhala’s lawyer, Harrison Nkomo, said they will appeal against both conviction and sentence. He said:
We disagree with judgment. It has no foundation at law. It’s not sound. This law no longer exists. It’s wrong for a court to convict with a law that no longer exists. That law is dead. How does it resuscitate?
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