Zimbabwe weaponizing justice system against Mthwakazi

The Mthwakazi Republic Party (MRP), led by Mqondisi Moyo, has accused Zimbabwean authorities of weaponising the justice system to suppress political dissent following the re-arrest of one of its members over an offence for which the party says he had already been convicted, imprisoned and completed serving his sentence.

Welcome Moyo, one of the nine MRP activists commonly known as the MRP9, was arrested by officers from Bulawayo Central Police Station on June 24, 2026.

The party described the arrest as unlawful and said it reflected a broader pattern in which "recycled charges, defective warrants and unresolved court processes are used to intimidate political actors from Matabeleland."

MRP president Mqondisi Moyo said the incident exposed what he described as a justice system increasingly being used against political opponents.

"This is not justice. This is persecution, confusion and State cruelty rolled into one," he said.

According to the party, Welcome Moyo was among nine activists arrested in 2021 who later spent three years in Khami, Chikurubi and Harare Central prisons before completing their custodial sentences.

The MRP claims that while the activists were serving their prison terms, their legal representatives lodged an appeal that was never heard by the courts and was never formally withdrawn or regularised.

The party alleges that the unresolved appeal has now created confusion within the justice system, with authorities allegedly treating the activists as though they had failed to serve their sentences.

"What is now emerging is a scandalous and dangerous breakdown of the justice system," Mqondisi Moyo said.

"While the MRP9 members were already serving their sentence, their lawyers had filed an appeal. That appeal, however, never proceeded through the courts and was never formally cancelled or regularised."

He claimed the unresolved court process had effectively created official records suggesting the activists had absconded.

"In other words, court and State records appear to reflect a fiction that these men absconded, even though the Zimbabwean State itself had them in custody for three years," he said.

"This is not just incompetence. It is a scandal. It is an outrageous abuse of process. It is a damning indictment of a justice system so disorganised, so reckless and so hostile to truth that it can imprison a man, release him after sentence and then later hunt him down as if he were a fugitive."

The party said the situation became more complicated when Welcome Moyo appeared before Tredgold Magistrates' Court in Bulawayo on Thursday.

According to the MRP, the presiding magistrate reportedly declined to deal with the matter after it emerged that there were no court records relating to the alleged warrant of arrest or the charges upon which Moyo had been detained.

At the time the party issued its statement, Welcome Moyo was reportedly still at court.

The MRP further alleged that the Zimbabwe Prisons and Correctional Service declined to admit him into custody because there was no legal documentation authorising his imprisonment.

"Welcome Moyo was effectively left in legal limbo as the police, the courts and prison authorities failed to account for the very warrant and charges used to arrest him," the party said, describing the developments as "a disgraceful spectacle of institutional confusion."

The party has demanded Welcome Moyo's immediate release and called on the Zimbabwe Republic Police, the judiciary and prison authorities to explain how the re-arrest occurred.

It also called for the correction of court and State records that it claims wrongly suggest members of the MRP9 absconded or failed to complete their prison terms.

Authorities had not publicly responded to the allegations at the time of publication.