HARARE – Six MDC Alliance supporters arrested on Sunday and accused of referring to police officers as “Mnangagwa’s dogs” were released on bail Tuesday.
Nobody Makoni, 51, Batsirai Sora, 33, Kudzai Sachiwo, 27, Jacob Chigodora, 32, Chipo Mungoshi, 34, and Memory Chikodze, 35, all from Epworth, pleaded not guilty to charges of criminal insult during a brief appearance before Harare magistrate Zvidzayi Mateko.
Bail was set at Z$5,000.
The six, who are represented by Noble Chinhanu of the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum, will return to court on December 14 for trial.
The National Prosecuting Authority said the six were arrested on Sunday while attending an MDC Alliance Citizens Convergence for Change meeting in Epworth, which police had not sanctioned.
They are alleged to have shouted at the arresting officers: “Mapurisa imi murimbwa dzaMnangagwa! Munongoshandiswa muchafa muchitambura (you police officers are Mnangagwa’s dogs. You’re being used and you’ll die poor).”
The state is alleging that the Mnangagwa referred to is Zimbabwe’s president Emmerson Mnangagwa.
The six told magistrate Mateko that police went about indiscriminately arresting people to pre-empt the MDC Alliance’s meeting.
The court heard Mungoshi is partially-paralysed from birth and a female police officer, Tambudzai Dzumbunu, who arrested her, dragged her to the police car.
Dzumbunu is the complainant in the case against the six.
She claimed that after a tip-off, they raided house number 2051, Solani, in Epworth and saw the accused persons and others who are still at large gathered.
“When the accused noticed the arrival of the police, they dispersed and later regrouped,” the prosecution alleges.
Makoni allegedly started insulting the police officers, accusing them of being “Mnangagwa’s dogs.” The others, it is alleged, “echoed the same words repeatedly towards the complainant and her colleagues.”
“The complaint felt insulted by the accused persons’ utterances and filed a report at ZRP Epworth,” the prosecution says.
