HARARE (AFP)--Zimbabwe's high court ordered Wednesday that a top rights activist, who was seized weeks ago, be released to hospital after facing accusations in a lower court of recruiting anti-government plotters.
Judge Yunus Omarjee ordered late Wednesday night that Jestina Mukoko and eight other activists be released to the custody of a Harare hospital under police guard until their next court date Dec. 29.
The judge offered no explanation for ordering them to hospital, but one of their lawyers said they may have been tortured.
"There are allegations that they have been tortured. They came to the police being blindfolded," said Beatrice Mtetwa, who was part of the defense team that filed an urgent application for the release of the detainees.
Omarjee also ordered the immediate release of 23 others, including a mother with a two-year-old baby in custody, declaring their detention "unlawful."
Mukoko and eight activists appeared earlier in a magistrate's court in Harare where they were accused of plotting against the government of President Robert Mugabe.
Specific charges against Mukoko, taken from her home on Dec. 3 and held in an unknown location, as well as the others, weren't listed in the magistrate's court, but prosecutor Florence Ziyambi spoke of the alleged plot.
"Sometime in October the government of Zimbabwe launched complaints that Botswana was training insurgents...for the purpose of removing the present government. That's when security people picked up the accused persons."
"Charges relate to recruiting for banditry," Ziymambi said.
A defense lawyer also told AFP that the group who appeared earlier Wednesday had been accused of recruiting or goading people to undergo military training in Botswana to topple Mugabe's government.
Mukoko, director of the Zimbabwe Peace Project - a rights group which has been compiling reports of election violence - is accused of facilitating the travel arrangements for a police constable to undergo military training in Botswana, according to a police statement earlier Wednesday.
Her location was unknown for several weeks, with a high court order for her release going unheeded, sparking protests from international rights bodies.
Both Botswana and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change have denied the charges.
Zimbabwe has been in political crisis since elections in March when the long-ruling ZANU-PF party lost control of parliament and Mugabe was pushed into second place by MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai in the presidential vote.
Tsvangirai pulled out of a run-off because of violence against his supporters.
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Publié le 24 Décembre 2008 Copyright © 2008 Dowjones