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From: Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA), [email protected] [2]

Zimbabwe Alert Update
May 10, 2002
Court rules journalists have case to answer

**** The following is an update of MISA Alerts issued on May 2, 6 and 7. See
www.misa.org [3] for more information.

A magistrate court in Harare ruled on May 7 that arrested "Daily News"
journalist, Lloyd Mudiwa and Zimbabwe correspondent for the British paper
"The
Guardian", Andrew Meldrum, have a case to answer. The two were remanded out
of
custody to May 22, 2002. Charges against the other accused, Collin Chiwanza
of
"The Daily News", have been dropped.

Harare provincial magistrate, Ms Lillian Kudya, dismissed an application
made by
Lawrence Chibwe on behalf of Mudiwa and Chiwanza and also by Beatrice Mtetwa
representing Meldrum, that the state had no evidence for a prima facie case
against the three. Kudya ruled that Mudiwa, the writer of the story and
Meldrum
had a case to answer under section 80 of the Access to Information Act. The
two
are accused of having written a false story thereby breaching section 80 of
the
Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act. The court ruled that
the
state is not obliged to prove its case beyond any reasonable doubt at this
stage.

Chiwanza who was arrested on the same day with Mudiwa had his charges
dropped on
the grounds that he simply accompanied Mudiwa to Maguje, the scene of an
alleged
politically motivated murder story that sparked the arrests of the three
journalists. The court found out that Chiwanza had not contributed to the
writing of the initial story, which has since been found to be untrue.

On May 7 "The Daily News" published a story in which it said that the
alleged
victim had died of natural causes and was only a lover and not the wife of
Enos
Tadyanemhandu, also known as George Nyadzayo. The paper also alleges that
Tadyanemhandu was working for the state's Central Intelligence Organization
(CIO), which wanted to spy on the opposition Movement for Democratic Change
(MDC) hence the genesis of the story.

The three journalists had earlier made an application for refusal of remand
saying that they had no intention of publishing a false story but were
misled by
the source and alleged husband of the victim, Tadyanemhandu also known as
Nyadzayo.

The court said that the two could challenge the constitutionality of the law
in
the Supreme Court. The lawyers for the arrested journalists have argued
that
the Section under which they are being charged is unconstitutional.

BACKGROUND

The arrests of the Zimbabwean journalists follow the publishing of an
article on
April 23, in which "The Daily News" alleged that two young girls had
witnessed
the beheading of their mother by alleged Zimbabwe African National Union
Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) supporters in the rural area of Magunje. Andrew
Meldrum, a Zimbabwean permanent resident and correspondent for the British
"Guardian" was arrested on May 2 for the same story which he wrote "The
Guardian"

"The Daily News", in a front-page story on April 27, apologised to the
ruling
party, ZANU PF, and to the government after it was revealed that the husband
of
the victim might have misled the paper.

Ends
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Information distributed by:
Zoe Titus
MISA Researcher & Information Officer
Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA)
Private Bag 13386
Windhoek, Namibia
Tel. +264 61 232975, Fax. 248016
e-mail: [email protected] [2]
web: http://www.misa.org [3]

MEDIA INSTITUTE OF SOUTHERN AFRICA
PROMOTING MEDIA DIVERSITY, PLURALISM, SELF-SUFFICIENCY AND INDEPENDENCE

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