MEDIA-ZIMBABWE: Newspaper Editor Freed on Bail

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Lewis Machipisa

HARARE, Nov 9 2001 (IPS) - Geoff Nyarota, Editor-in-chief of Zimbabwe’s only independent paper, the Daily News, has been freed on bail after being detained overnight on charges of giving false investment information.

Nyarota appeared before a Harare Magistrates Court Friday afternoon together with a former executive of the paper, Wilf Mbanga.

The pair was arrested Thursday by police in a dawn raid at their houses on a charge of giving false information when they registered their publishing company two years ago.

After spending the night in jail under conditions they said were “appalling”, the two were in happy spirits when they left the magistrates court in Harare.

They said they were made to sleep on concrete floor without blankets.

Both Nyarota and Mbanga were released on a 181-U.S.-dollar bail each, and ordered to report regularly to the Criminal Investigation Department Headquarters in Harare.

As part of their bail conditions, they were also ordered to surrender their travel documents on or before Nov 28 and not to interfere with state witnesses.

The two will appear before court next week where a ruling on their application for their case to be dropped will be made.

Soon after their release, Mbanga said the cell that he and Nyarota had been kept in overnight was “filthy and very dehumanising to say the least”.

Nyarota, who has been arrested three times over the past six months, said he is satisfied with the court’s proceedings so far.

The two are facing charges of violating section 40 of the Zimbabwe Investment Centre Act. If convicted, they will either pay 36 U.S. dollars in fine, or imprisonment, or both.

Their lawyer, Lawrence Chibwe said there was no need at all for his clients to have spent the night in police custody.

The Daily News is critical of the government and has survived two bomb attacks on its Harare offices. “Nothing whatsoever will make me change the policy of my newspaper,” says Nyarota.

The problem started on Monday when the state-run Zimbabwe Investment Centre ordered the Daily News to close, accusing its company directors of infringing investment laws and exchange control regulations.

The Centre demanded the surrender of the paper’s investment certificate and to cease operations immediately, claiming the basis on which the company was established had been terminated.

But the Daily News, formed two years ago, has denied the allegations, saying they are a ploy to close down the paper.

In a statement Friday, the paper blamed an error made by a chartered accountant firm, Price Waterhouse Coopers in a letter to the Zimbabwe Investment Centre on share holding in the publishing group for the arrest of Mbanga and Nyarota.

Instead of putting the company as Motley Trading, Price Waterhouse registered the firm as Motley Investments.

According to the investment centre, before any registration of a share holding company is accepted, the documentation of all partners must be made available.

But Despite that anomaly, Nyarota believes that senior ruling party politicians were behind attempts to close down his newspaper.

Last month, police arrested four ANZ directors in connection with similar allegations.

Supporters of free press have condemned the editor’s arrest as a part of sustained efforts to silence the paper, and opponents of President Robert Mugabe’s government ahead of next year’s crucial presidential elections.