A Victoria Falls bookshop owner, Sinikiwe Matore, who was detained over the weekend for allegedly selling Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s memoirs, At the Deep End, has been released on free bail.
Instead, the police are now charging her company, Rosepet, with contravening Section 33 (1) (b) of the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act, Chapter 9:23, “Undermining the authority or insulting the President.”
Victoria Falls magistrate Archibald Dingana remanded the case to March 23.
Matore, who was represented by Sifilelizwe Mguni from Bulawayo, was arrested last Friday after police raided her shop and confiscated 10 copies of Tsvangirai’s book.
State counsel Namatirai Ngwasha told the court on January 17 at around 1pm, police officers were shopping around town when they got to Rosepet Bookshop.
While in the bookshop, the officers found a book entitled At the Deep End, an autobiography of the MDC-T leader which was officially launched last December.
The officers then developed an interest in the book and they opened it and went through some pages.
During the process, the officers discovered some flyers at the back of the book inscribed “Zimafia, Zimbabwe’s worst eleven”.
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The flyers were inscribed “Robert Mugabe is the coach of the team of top government officials”.
The police then confiscated 10 more copies of the book and took them to Victoria Falls Police Station where after consultations with their superiors, they went back and arrested Matore for the offence.
Matore’s co-director Mlamuli Mabhena reportedly handed himself over to police on Sunday and was subsequently arrested and detained for the night. Both have been spared the charges.
