Zimbabwe Human rights violations case referred to Supreme Court

A Harare magistrate, Shane Kubonera has ruled that the lives of 24 MDC-T members who were arrested in May on charges of murdering a police officer are at stake and referred their application to the Supreme Court.

The 24 members raised complaints on their initial remand in court that they had been severely assaulted while in police custody prompting the magistrate to order the state to carry out investigations on the complaints.

However, for over two months now the Attorney General's Office has failed to bring affidavits of the investigations to court. Magistrate Kubonera today ruled that the complaints made by the MDC-T members were justified and their lives were at stake. The complainants had said that their individual rights had been infringed upon as they were assaulted while in police custody and denied access to lawyers.

Magistrate Kubonera further referred the matter to the Supreme Court saying he had no jurisdiction over the matter as it was a constitutional issue.

Of the 24 members, seven remain in remand prison while the other 17 were granted bail in July.  Those in remand are; Councillor Tungamirai Madzokera of Ward 32, Glen View, Rebecca Mafukeni, Musarurwa, Manjoro, brothers Stanley and Lazarus Maengahama, Standford Chitanda, and Phineas Nhatarikwa.

Their routine remand date was postponed to 7 September. 

However, the defence lawyers said they would file a notice for refusal of further remand if the state failed to set a trial date on 7 September.