Zimbabwe opposition politician and former MP Job Sikhala is finally a free man after a record 595 days on pre-trial remand.<\/p>\n
A Harare magistrate has sentenced Sikhala and his co-accused, MP Godfrey Sithole, to a two-year, wholly suspended term for five years. Sithole was granted bail after five months on remand. They were both convicted of inciting public violence.<\/p>\n
Sikhala’s lawyers say they will appeal against the conviction at the High Court.<\/p>\n
He was arrested in June 2022 and charged with encouraging the violence that followed the discovery of the dismembered body of Citizens’ Coalition for Change (CCC) activist Moreblessing Ali in a well, three weeks after she went missing.<\/p>\n
The news triggered violence in Ali’s Chitungwiza neighborhood, some 30km (19 miles) south of Harare, the capital.<\/p>\n
Sikhala, who was the Ali family lawyer, was accused of having used social media to encourage the violence. He denied the charge.<\/p>\n
Convicting the duo, the trial magistrate said evidence showed that Sikhala, then a member of parliament, and Sithole were responsible for the violence.<\/p>\n
The courts granted Sithole bail after five months in remand, but Sikhala’s several applications for bail failed.<\/p>\n
This fed rumours that Sikhala was a victim of persecution by the state. He said he had been arrested more than 60 times without a single conviction.<\/p>\n
Sikhala’s legal woes are, however, far from over.<\/p>\n
According to his lawyer, he is still facing charges of disorderly conduct, inciting violence and publishing falsehoods.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Zimbabwe opposition politician and former MP Job Sikhala is finally a free man after a record 595 days on pre-trial remand. A Harare magistrate has sentenced Sikhala and his co-accused, MP Godfrey Sithole, to a two-year, wholly suspended term for five years. Sithole was granted bail after five months on remand. They were both convicted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":10723,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"source_name":"BBC","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override_template":"0","override":[{"template":"1","single_blog_custom":"","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"0","show_view_counter":"0","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"0","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"0","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"0","show_popup_post":"0","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"override_image_size":"0","image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post":"0","trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post":"0","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","sponsored_post_name":"","sponsored_post_url":"","sponsored_post_logo_enable":"0","sponsored_post_logo":"","sponsored_post_desc":"","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":"","hide":""},"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"override_view_counter":"0","view_counter_number":"0","override_share_counter":"0","share_counter_number":"0","override_like_counter":"0","like_counter_number":"0","override_dislike_counter":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,30],"tags":[1286,2048,76],"class_list":["post-10722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","category-southern-africa","tag-citizens-coalition-for-change-ccc","tag-job-sikhala","tag-zimbabwe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10722\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}