EMBATTLED former war veterans leader Jabulani Sibanda, who was arrested last week and charged with allegedly insulting President Robert Mugabe, was yesterday released on $400 bail, but forbidden from setting foot at the ongoing Zanu PF congress or organising a protest march to any State institution. PHILLIP CHIDAVAENZI SENIOR REPORTER
Harare provincial magistrate Vakayi Douglas Chikwekwe also gave Sibanda the greenlight to have his matter referred to the Supreme Court, saying the application was neither vexatious nor frivolous.
Sibanda is facing allegations of insulting President Robert Mugabe, which is criminalised by Section 33 (2) (b) of the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act.
“The likelihood that he (Sibanda) will commit further offences would have been strong if the State had shown that the accused attempted to do so. However, the State failed to substantiate this assertion,” Chikwekwe ruled.
He also ruled that the gathering at which Sibanda allegedly claimed that Mugabe and First Lady Grace Mugabe were hatching a “bedroom” or “boardroom coup” through which they wanted to remove Vice-President Joice Mujuru from her position was attended by many people and Sibanda was unlikely to know which among them was going to testify in court.
Allegations against Sibanda are that on October 27 2014 at Herbert Mine in Mutasa, he addressed an illegal gathering of war veterans who had come to witness the reburial of liberation war fighters’ bodies exhumed from the mine shaft.
Sibanda allegedly claimed that Mugabe wanted to replace Mujuru with First Lady Grace Mugabe. The State further alleged that Sibanda vowed to block the plan, saying “power was not sexually transmitted”.
