FILE - Then-Zimbabwe's minister of state in the Prime Minister's office Jameson Timba, arrives at the High Court in Harare, Sunday, June, 26, 2011. (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi, File)
FILE - Then-Zimbabwe's minister of state in the Prime Minister's office Jameson Timba, arrives at the High Court in Harare, Sunday, June, 26, 2011. (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi, File)
HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — A Zimbabwean court freed an opposition leader and 34 activists Wednesday after sentencing them to suspended prison terms for participating in what authorities termed an unlawful gathering.
Magistrate Collet Ncube sentenced Jameson Timba, interim leader of a faction of the party, to a suspended two-year prison term after he and the activists in custody. The activists received lesser prison terms, also wholly suspended.
The magistrate last week. He acquitted 30 others who had been detained alongside Timba.
Police arrested them at Timba’s residence in the capital, Harare, and charged them with disorderly conduct and participating in a gathering with the intent to promote violence, breaches of peace or bigotry. The court acquitted them of the disorderly conduct charges in September.
Their lawyers said they were at the house for a barbecue to commemorate the Day of the African Child, a calendar event of the African Union.
Amnesty International described the detention as “part of a disturbing pattern of repression†under and called for an investigation into allegations that some of the activists were tortured while in police detention.
Mnangagwa's ruling ZANU-PF party has long been accused of , including under the autocratic former President Robert Mugabe, who ruled for 37 years before Mnangagwa replaced him in a coup in 2017.
