WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.
Original Post Date: 2011-07-23 Time: 14:00:02 Posted By: News Poster
By Bornwell Chakaodza
THIS week alone, two State cases against political activists collapsed like a deck of cards because prosecutors could not sustain the charges without sufficient evidence.
On Monday, State prosecutors dropped treason charges against six activists accused of plotting an “Egyptian Style” uprising to overthrow President Robert Mugabe’s government. The substance of the State case was that Munyaradzi Gwisai, a former MP and opposition activist, invited a number of people to watch videos of the unrest in Egypt which toppled President Hosni Mubarak and to discuss democratic reform in Zimbabwe.
In the wisdom, or lack of it, the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) investigating officers were convinced that the meeting, attended by mostly a handful of concerned intellectuals and ordinary Harare workers, was a prelude to a treasonous uprising in Zimbabwe. How a professional police force which prides itself in being regularly called upon for UN peace-keeping duties can come to this preposterous conclusion and then proceed to arrest and cause the prosecution of people purely on the basis of conjecture about their motivation defies logic.
Earlier on Monday, State prosecutors announced they were withdrawing corruption charges against Energy Minister, Elton Mangoma.
Last month, Mangoma was acquitted of allegations that he corruptly bypassed government procedures in buying fuel from a South African company in January. This case also exposed a disturbing phenomenon of collusion between some civil servants and police in seeking to embarrass or humiliate those belonging to other political parties other than their own.
There are many other cases dating back 10 or so years ago including arrest of journalists in the course of doing their work, police have routinely failed to secure convictions because of the paucity of evidence they offered. In many of the cases involving journalists, the sum-total of police investigations have been intimidatory interrogations of accused persons apparently in order to force them to disclose sources of information, which in itself, is a violation of journalistic ethics.
In countries where the State institutions function normally, the Attorney-General would take umbrage and anger with the police for continuously bringing for prosecution, cases without proper evidence. But that would be too much to expect from Johannes Tomana, the current Attorney-General who, by virtue of being a self- confessed supporter of one of the parties represented in the inclusive government, has proved time and time again that he cannot be relied upon to be impartial in his decisions.
While the Zimbabwe judiciary has remained largely professional and independent in delivering justice where cases have been handled properly, the same cannot be said about the police and the Office of the Attorney-General. Indeed, as one observer noted recently, the acquittal of Minister Mangoma was an indictment on the office of the Attorney-General who wasted the tax payer’s money in besmirching and persecuting an innocent Zimbabwean.
Little wonder therefore, that so- called abuse of office charges against Mangoma failed to stick, just as similar cases against thousands of others which crumbled like a deck of cards over the past 12 years. The effect of all this has been to completely destroy the credibility of the police and the o ffice of the Attorney-General which is most unfortunate indeed for our country. We do not need this state of affairs in this day and age.
What is even more disturbing is that in all these cases which have invariably come to zero, the accused persons have been made to suffer humiliation and needless incarceration exposing them to physical discomfort and possibly chronic diseases at the hands of the police.
In many of the cases, suspects were arrested publicly, bundled into police vehicles and driven away to be locked up in some filthy police cells where neither their relatives nor lawyers could reach them. It is therefore difficult to escape the conclusion that in many of these cases, the police were aware that it would be impossible to secure a conviction but were still determined to punish the suspects by subjecting them to these inhuman conditions.
It is also worth noting that many of the arrests, particularly those which appear to be politically motivated, seem to go beyond normal law enforcement. For instance, it is difficult to understand why senior MDC officials, a recent example being that an MDC Minister, Jameson Timba, always seem to end up at the notorious Matapi police station when there are many other less frightening places they could be taken to.
In the Timba case like in many others before and after it, the police motive appeared to be persecution than prosecution. Apparently, in a deliberate effort to cause him as much anxiety as possible, he was shuttled between police stations including the infamous Matapi police station. I do not know whether there is something in the Police Act or Police Charter that authorises such shuttling between police stations. But to what purpose anyway?
It is blatant miscarriage of justice when the police, whose role is simply to arrest and hold people in custody while prosecuting authorities present their evidence before courts which have the final authority to prescribe punishment for offenders arrogate themselves the role of judge, jury and executioner – all rolled into one. This is an untenable situation which, if not dealt with as a matter of urgency, will one day come back to haunt those responsible for allowing it to happen.
Beneficiaries of this miscarriage of justice being perpetrated by their loyalists today must not cry foul when the same injustices are turned on them by the same people they are turning to subvert the law. If you train your child to be a hooligan, you should not be surprised when that child turns against you when it suits him to do so at some point in his or her lifetime.
It is also unfortunate that professional policemen who have distinguished themselves over the years in ensuring that laws of the land are scrupulously observed, find themselves lumped together with rogue elements who believe that the more brutal and feared they are in the execution of their duties, the more acceptable they are to their paymasters. A number of senior police officers have gained notoriety not for their “Sherlock Holmes” skills but for their brutal and amoral methods of extracting confessions from suspects.
It is this behavior of the police that justifies the on-going calls by well-meaning Zimbabweans for security sector reforms. A police force that becomes a willing tool of politics to persecute perceived opposition elements cannot be relied upon to be impartial in carrying out its duties. More than 600 senior police officers who were linked to the Mubarak regime Egypt were forced to relinquish their positions because they could not fit in the new system. They became the proverbial square peg in a round hole in the new democratic Egypt.
Surely, this is the last thing that Zimbabweans would want to see happen in their country.
Original date published: 22 July 2011
Source: http://allafrica.com/stories/201107230019.html?viewall=1