High Court Overturns Convictions Against Job Sikhala For Which He Spent 595 Days In Prison
The High Court of Zimbabwe has overturned two separate convictions and sentences against prominent opposition politician Job Sikhala.
On July 22, 2024, the High Court issued rulings that overturned Sikhala’s previous convictions and sentences on charges of inciting violence and communicating falsehoods.
On January 24, 2024, Sikhala was found guilty of inciting violence by Harare Magistrate Tafadzwa Miti. This charge stemmed from the unrest that erupted during the funeral of slain Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) activist Moreblessing Ali in June 2022.
In a separate case on February 15, 2024, Sikhala was fined US$500 by Harare Regional Magistrate Feresi Chakanyuka for communicating falsehoods.
Chakanyuka also handed Sikhala a nine-month suspended sentence, contingent on him not committing a similar offence within the next five years.
This charge was related to Sikhala’s 2021 tweet alleging that a junior police officer had killed a baby with a baton in Harare.
Amnesty International had previously condemned Sikhala’s conviction for “publishing or communicating false statements prejudicial to the state,” describing it as a “travesty of justice.”
Khanyo Farisè, Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director for East and Southern Africa, noted that Sikhala had been convicted under a law that did not exist.
In separate rulings, the High Court has now overturned both of these convictions and sentences after Sikhala launched appeals against the lower court decisions.
Responding to the High Court’s rulings, Sikhala described the ZANU PF-led government as a “criminal regime.” He wrote on X:
For 595 days, I was thrown in solitary confinement shackled in chains like a terrorist and suffered the most horrible abuse any person can be put under by the criminal regime in Harare for allegedly inciting public violence to revenge the gruesome murder of Moreblessing Ali.
I told all who cared to listen to me that I did not commit any crime in my professional calling to represent the Moreblessing Ali family. I told all of you that it was the evilness that resided in the hearts of those who ran our country, and it was political persecution to remove me from the 2023 general elections.
Today, the High Court sat in Harare to hear my two appeals, one fake conviction of publishing falsehoods and another one of inciting public violence to revenge the death of Moreblessing Ali.
The High Court acquitted me in the two cases. There was concurrence by the state that the first case was a wrong conviction based on the law that does not exist at all.
In the second case of Moreblessing Ali, the state agreed that there was no evidence at all in the record, showing that I incited anyone.
To those who have been used to persecuting me, my family, and everyone associated with me, remember there is God in heaven.
Your day of judgment shall also come. The nonsense peddled that it then defeats our view that the judiciary is captured when it comes to political prisoners is as scandalous as its peddlers.
Where there is no evidence that even a kraalhead would convict leaves judiciary officers of dignity with no option but to uphold their dignity by throwing away fake convictions.
Award-winning journalist Hopewell Chin’ono had harsh words for the two female magistrates involved in the lower court rulings.
Chin’ono described Tafadzwa Miti and Feresi Chakanyuka as “shameless” in their handling of the cases against Sikhala. Said Chin’ono:
Feresi Chakanyuka, and on the right is Tafadzwa Mhiti, the two shameless magistrates who convicted Job Sikhala for crimes he didn’t commit.
Feresi Chakanyuka is so shameless that she used a law that doesn’t exist to convict and jail Sikhala. She even disregarded a High Court ruling that clearly stated such a law doesn’t exist!
Make them famous by RETWEETING them; it is time the whole world knows these accessories to repression and abuse of power!
There must be an online website that documents all these corrupt and captured magistrates, the opposition must learn to fight back using today’s tools like the internet and AI to expose these unprofessional and captured ZANUPF magistrates!
It is unbelievable that Feresi Chakanyuka could blatantly disregard the ruling of a higher court ruling and apply a non-existent law to convict someone!
Tafadzwa Miti, too, has proven that she is no better than Chakanyuka with her equally shameful role in this sham trial.
These names need to be known and remembered for posterity!
More: Pindula News
