Job Shikara.Photo: Attached
Zimbabwean opposition politician Job Sihara, who spent more than 18 months in prison, was released on Tuesday night after being given a suspended sentence by a Harare court.
Sihara, a leader of Citizens United for Change, was one of the most prominent people arrested in recent years in what rights groups described as a crackdown on dissent.
“This was an act of persecution,” Sihara told local media after being released from a high-security prison on the outskirts of the capital Harare in the evening.
“Those who have kept me in this prison for so long will understand that my determination to pay any price for the love of my country is beyond reproach.”
Shihara, a former lawmaker, was found guilty last week of inciting public violence after a year-long trial that his supporters said was politically motivated.
Another opposition lawmaker, Godfrey Shihor, was also found guilty of similar charges, and both were given two-year suspended sentences on Tuesday.
After the verdict was read, a small group of supporters celebrated by singing and dancing on the courtroom steps.
Sihara suggested he was hastily released by prison officials under cover of darkness.
“They totally fooled me,” he told one of his lawyers in video footage released by Newshawks Media.
“I was abandoned here,” Shikara added.
His lawyer had earlier said he was scheduled to be released on Wednesday morning and asked supporters to meet him outside the prison.
Mr. Shikala and Mr. Shikhor were found guilty of inciting their supporters to avenge the death of political ally Moreh Blessing Ali, who was killed by ruling party activists in May 2022. He denied the charges.
His lawyers say this is not his first run-in with the law, with his long and arduous political career including more than 60 arrests.
His last words were in June 2022, at a memorial service for Ali, whose dismembered body was found in a well a few days earlier.
Since then, Shihara has been in jail after more than a dozen unsuccessful bail applications.
“The fact that he has been denied bail and remains in custody is a terrible injustice,” defense attorney Douglas Coltart said.
Coltart, one of Zimbabwe's top rights lawyers, has himself been in legal trouble recently. In September, he was arrested after he objected to police questioning of two of his clients at the hospital.
Charges against him were dropped last week.
Critics have long accused the ruling Zanu PF party, which has been in power since independence in 1980, of using the courts to silence opposition voices.
Despite his numerous arrests, Mr. Cicala has only been convicted once, for obstruction of justice, stemming from a speech he gave at the same memorial service in 2023.
The ruling disqualified him from running to retain his seat in parliament, ahead of presidential and parliamentary elections in August last year.
Prosecutors argued that by naming Zanu PF as the perpetrator of the murder, they diverted the investigation from focusing on other suspects. This ruling was later overturned on appeal.
Zanu PF won both the presidential and parliamentary seats in an election that opposition parties said was fraudulent and international observers said fell below democratic standards. —AFP
