By Violet Gonda
Two MDC officials, Chris Dhlamini, Ghandi Mudzingwa, plus photo journalist Shadreck Manyere, remain in police custody on banditry charges and the MDC says at least seven activists are still missing.
They were all abducted between October and December last year, together with scores of other civic and political activists. Many of them, including Jestina Mukoko the Director of the Zimbabwe Peace Project, have been released on bail, but Dhlamini and Mudzingwa are being ‘held’ at the Avenues Clinic, while Manyere is at the notorious Chikurubi Maximum Security prison, a place where prisoners are suffering appalling conditions and dying from hunger and disease.
The MDC says the whereabouts of Gwenzi Kahiya ,Ephraim Mabeka, Lovemore Machokoto, Charles Muza, Edmore Vangirayi, Graham Matehwa and Peter Munyanyi are still unknown.
On Monday MDC official Eddie Cross released the name of another MDC activist, Dumisani Hapazani, who disappeared in June last year. Cross said: “His abductors were driving new Mazda twin cabs and we subsequently found that he was first moved to 4 Brigade and then to Goromonzi. No further news of his whereabouts has been received.”
The MDC official said Hapazani’s crime was that he signed the nomination form of an MDC candidate for the local government elections in March 2008. “He was questioned by CIO before his abduction about this, at the time he was the Manager of ZESA in the Chiredzi area. He leaves a widow and two children, both girls.”
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Victimisation of Junior Officers Continuing at ZPS
HARARE, March 30 2009 - Three Prison Officers stationed at Harare Central Prison have been summoned by Officer Commanding Mashonaland Region Assistant Commissioner Nelson Chikwature, to answer to allegations of publicly denouncing ZANU PF, celebrating the inauguration of Prime minister Morgan Tsvangirai and the subsequent awarding of USd 100 allowances to civil servants.
This is despite an order to senior officials by Zimbabwe Prison Services Chief, Paradzai Zimondi two weeks ago, to stop victimising junior officers.
The prison officers, who spoke to RadioVOP on condition of anonymity, said they have been summoned to the Commanding Officer’s office for the hearing on Monday.
“We have been called in connection with statements we made last week while we were drinking at a prison bar. In fact we were celebrating having been paid for the first time after a long time of working for nothing. We never denounced any political party in the process as alleged,” said one of the officers.
Last week ZPS held a sports fund raising gala at Harare Central Prison camp and it is at the venue where the three allegedly made the anti- ZANU PF utterances.
Zimbabwe Prison Services Chief, Paradzai Zimondi, on March 20 convened a meeting with all Officers-In-Charge and Commanding Officers as well as other senior officers at the Harare Central Prison complex, and instructed them to fully support the inclusive government.
“The commissioner told us that we should forget what happened in June 2008 because it was done for political reasons adding that we should inform our subordinates that the inclusive government is the only way of reconstructing the rundown nation and the ZPS,” said a Commanding Officer who declined to be named.
He said the commissioner noted with concern the continuous victimization of junior officers within the organization and reminded the senior officers that the time for such behaviour was over and that his anti Tsvangirai statements uttered last year were no longer valid.
“He also told us that the inclusive government is a reality and victimization should stop as it compromises development as stated in the GPA,” added the Commanding Officer.
Zimondi is on record as having said he would retire if Movement for Democratic Change leader Morgan Tsvangirai won the presidential election in last year’s March harmonized election.
“I would rather retire and go farming if Tsvangirai is elected President because I would have difficulty saluting a person who did not go to war,” Zimondi was quoted as having said last year while addressing Prison Officers in Harare.
Meanwhile there was free for all drama at Chesvingo Police base in Mucheke when residents, who were walking along Yomukono Street, in front of the police base on Sunday morning, refused to stop in respect of the raising of the national flag by a police detail.
Residents said it was ridiculous for them to stop and respect the raising of a tattered flag.
RadioVOP witnessed more than 20 people including children, shouting back at a police officer who had ordered them to stop and respect the proceedings.
“Unopenga unoda kuti timire iwe uchiturika mamvemve (You are mad, you want us to stop walking in respect of the raising of a tattered a flag?) We used to respect this process but it is shameful for us to stand and honour that eyesore flag.
“If the police were serious, they would request a new flag on time rather than to raise such a shameful flag,” said one of the men who refused to stop.
When the police officer realised that the people who were passing by were not scared of him, he quietly proceeded to raise both the national and the Zimbabwe Republic Police flags while people laughed at him.
The national flag at Chesvingo police base is now just a tattered piece of grey cloth, with the Zimbabwe bird no longer visible. It is now very difficult, especially for children, to distinguish it from an ordinary tattered piece of cloth.
However, a snap survey by RadioVOP in Masvingo revealed that it is not only the flag at Chesvingo Police, which is tattered, but at most government institutions.
This is despite an order to senior officials by Zimbabwe Prison Services Chief, Paradzai Zimondi two weeks ago, to stop victimising junior officers.
The prison officers, who spoke to RadioVOP on condition of anonymity, said they have been summoned to the Commanding Officer’s office for the hearing on Monday.
“We have been called in connection with statements we made last week while we were drinking at a prison bar. In fact we were celebrating having been paid for the first time after a long time of working for nothing. We never denounced any political party in the process as alleged,” said one of the officers.
Last week ZPS held a sports fund raising gala at Harare Central Prison camp and it is at the venue where the three allegedly made the anti- ZANU PF utterances.
Zimbabwe Prison Services Chief, Paradzai Zimondi, on March 20 convened a meeting with all Officers-In-Charge and Commanding Officers as well as other senior officers at the Harare Central Prison complex, and instructed them to fully support the inclusive government.
“The commissioner told us that we should forget what happened in June 2008 because it was done for political reasons adding that we should inform our subordinates that the inclusive government is the only way of reconstructing the rundown nation and the ZPS,” said a Commanding Officer who declined to be named.
He said the commissioner noted with concern the continuous victimization of junior officers within the organization and reminded the senior officers that the time for such behaviour was over and that his anti Tsvangirai statements uttered last year were no longer valid.
“He also told us that the inclusive government is a reality and victimization should stop as it compromises development as stated in the GPA,” added the Commanding Officer.
Zimondi is on record as having said he would retire if Movement for Democratic Change leader Morgan Tsvangirai won the presidential election in last year’s March harmonized election.
“I would rather retire and go farming if Tsvangirai is elected President because I would have difficulty saluting a person who did not go to war,” Zimondi was quoted as having said last year while addressing Prison Officers in Harare.
Meanwhile there was free for all drama at Chesvingo Police base in Mucheke when residents, who were walking along Yomukono Street, in front of the police base on Sunday morning, refused to stop in respect of the raising of the national flag by a police detail.
Residents said it was ridiculous for them to stop and respect the raising of a tattered flag.
RadioVOP witnessed more than 20 people including children, shouting back at a police officer who had ordered them to stop and respect the proceedings.
“Unopenga unoda kuti timire iwe uchiturika mamvemve (You are mad, you want us to stop walking in respect of the raising of a tattered a flag?) We used to respect this process but it is shameful for us to stand and honour that eyesore flag.
“If the police were serious, they would request a new flag on time rather than to raise such a shameful flag,” said one of the men who refused to stop.
When the police officer realised that the people who were passing by were not scared of him, he quietly proceeded to raise both the national and the Zimbabwe Republic Police flags while people laughed at him.
The national flag at Chesvingo police base is now just a tattered piece of grey cloth, with the Zimbabwe bird no longer visible. It is now very difficult, especially for children, to distinguish it from an ordinary tattered piece of cloth.
However, a snap survey by RadioVOP in Masvingo revealed that it is not only the flag at Chesvingo Police, which is tattered, but at most government institutions.
In Zimbabwe, law has a long road ahead
By Robyn Dixon
Banket - The man and woman who came to the 5-year-old boy's house in October were friendly and smiled a lot. They carried a bag of dried beans and asked where his mother was. Alan Mutemagawu was thrilled - his mother would be happy to get the beans. Proudly, he led them the hour's walk to the village where she was in hiding from Zimbabwean security agents. The smiling couple didn't say much. But his mother didn't look pleased when Alan turned up with the visitors. "She looked sad. She didn't say goodbye. She just walked away with them," the boy said recently at his grandmother's house, near the village of Banket. Neighbors found him crying after the visitors - state ecurity agents - took away his mother, Violet Mupfuranhehwe, and his 2-year-old brother, Nigel. He found out later that they'd also taken his
father, Collen Mutemagawu. Little Nigel spent 76 days in jail before being released to relatives. After months of legal wrangling, his mother and father and some other jailed opposition activists - including Roy Bennett, who has been tapped to serve as deputy agriculture minister - were finally freed on bail early this month. But they still face trial on charges of terrorism and plotting to oust longtime President Robert Mugabe.
Since Mugabe was forced last month to join a "unity government" with the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, Zimbabwean hopes for justice over the political killings, arrests and torture by his often ruthless regime have soared. But the MDC's struggle to get its activists released from prison on bail suggests that there is a long, hard road ahead to reestablish the rule of law. The security organs remain firmly in Mugabe's hands, with his Zanu PF party likely to block prosecutions for crimes against humanity or any meaningful truth and reconciliation process. Zanu PF hard-liners and security chiefs, many implicated in killings and abuses going back as far as massacres in the early 1980s, bitterly oppose the unity eal. "They're interested in two things. One is the avoidance of any sort of accountability. Secondly, they want to stay on the gravy train," said Tony Reeler, director of the independent group Research and Advocacy Unit. He says one of the most serious barriers to change is that the police and judiciary - long used by the Mugabe regime to repress political opponents - haven't changed. "To rein in the police obviously requires the executive to change fundamentally," Reeler said. "I don't think it's in the interests of Zanu PF to change the behavior of the police. The judiciary are much more complicated. There's no easy way to get rid of them unless you can show
they're corrupt or have committed a crime, and that's enormously difficult
to prove."
The unity agreement calls for respect for the rule of law. But opposition Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, aware that the issue is sensitive enough among the security chiefs to derail the new government, has been vague about prosecution of those guilty of major abuses. Tsvangirai is intimately familiar with those abuses: He was arrested and beaten by police in 2007 and has narrowly escaped assassination several times. In 1997, security agents tried to throw him out the window of his office in a multistory building. Some senior MDC members favor immunity deals for the security chiefs as the price for a peaceful transition and the move to freer elections in two years. Zimbabwean civic activist organizations support a truth and
reconciliation commission, which would be a lengthy and unwieldy process because of the number of crimes. The Human Rights Forum has recorded reports of 40,000 human rights violations since 2001, when it started collecting the information. Memories are raw for MDC activists who bore the brunt of political violence last year, when security forces and militias beat, raped and tortured thousands of Mugabe's opponents, leaving about 180 dead. The appetite for justice is huge.
But the healing process outlined by Tsvangirai duplicates the awkward compromise seen in the unity government. The three ministers for "national healing" - one from each party in the government - will hear Zimbabweans' complaints of abuses and decide how to respond to each case, Tsvangirai recently told a group of businessmen. Critics question whether victims and their families would feel safe enough to approach the ministerial group and make accusations - knowing that the perpetrators, often their neighbors, are at large. The ongoing trials of activists won't help people put fear behind them. Roy Bennett, released this month from the Mutare prison after a month in detention, said conditions there were appalling. "There are gross human rights abuses behind those walls. Five people died while I was inside, and
it took the prison officers four to five days to remove the bodies," he said. Violet Mupfuranhehwe's testimony about prison conditions is just as devastating. Her lawyer, Alec Muchadehama, said that 2-year-old Nigel saw her severely beaten in the Chikurubi maximum security prison. At one point he started crying. Her captors shouted at him to shut up, and hit him too, the lawyer said. There was no medicine in prison and so little food that dozens of inmates died late last year, prison staff members said.
Decomposing bodies were piled in the room next to the cell where Mupfuranhehwe was being held with Nigel and five other MDC women, her lawyer said. A Chikurubi prison employee, speaking to The Times on condition of anonymity for fear of dismissal, said 250 bodies were buried in a mass grave at the prison late last year. The government has made no comment on the allegations of poor prison conditions by Bennett and others.
As Alan Mutemagawu sat in the sunny doorway of his grandmother's house remembering the day the smiling people came for his mother, his little brother Nigel fidgeted nearby, gnawing on a cob of raw corn. When their grandmother, Jennifer Mupfuranhehwe, playfully asked Nigel, "Where were you?" he replied matter-of-factly, "In jail." She said her grandsons know their parents were jailed for being members of the MDC. She sees the charges against her daughter and son-in-law as just part of a long campaign to harass and frighten them, and said they prove that Mugabe and Zanu PF are still completely in control. "It's clearly showing that power is not coming to the MDC," she said. Alan didn't care about the government and power. He
just wanted his mother. "I wish she would come back," he said. And soon his
long wait was over. Violet Mupfuranhehwe came home.
Banket - The man and woman who came to the 5-year-old boy's house in October were friendly and smiled a lot. They carried a bag of dried beans and asked where his mother was. Alan Mutemagawu was thrilled - his mother would be happy to get the beans. Proudly, he led them the hour's walk to the village where she was in hiding from Zimbabwean security agents. The smiling couple didn't say much. But his mother didn't look pleased when Alan turned up with the visitors. "She looked sad. She didn't say goodbye. She just walked away with them," the boy said recently at his grandmother's house, near the village of Banket. Neighbors found him crying after the visitors - state ecurity agents - took away his mother, Violet Mupfuranhehwe, and his 2-year-old brother, Nigel. He found out later that they'd also taken his
father, Collen Mutemagawu. Little Nigel spent 76 days in jail before being released to relatives. After months of legal wrangling, his mother and father and some other jailed opposition activists - including Roy Bennett, who has been tapped to serve as deputy agriculture minister - were finally freed on bail early this month. But they still face trial on charges of terrorism and plotting to oust longtime President Robert Mugabe.
Since Mugabe was forced last month to join a "unity government" with the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, Zimbabwean hopes for justice over the political killings, arrests and torture by his often ruthless regime have soared. But the MDC's struggle to get its activists released from prison on bail suggests that there is a long, hard road ahead to reestablish the rule of law. The security organs remain firmly in Mugabe's hands, with his Zanu PF party likely to block prosecutions for crimes against humanity or any meaningful truth and reconciliation process. Zanu PF hard-liners and security chiefs, many implicated in killings and abuses going back as far as massacres in the early 1980s, bitterly oppose the unity eal. "They're interested in two things. One is the avoidance of any sort of accountability. Secondly, they want to stay on the gravy train," said Tony Reeler, director of the independent group Research and Advocacy Unit. He says one of the most serious barriers to change is that the police and judiciary - long used by the Mugabe regime to repress political opponents - haven't changed. "To rein in the police obviously requires the executive to change fundamentally," Reeler said. "I don't think it's in the interests of Zanu PF to change the behavior of the police. The judiciary are much more complicated. There's no easy way to get rid of them unless you can show
they're corrupt or have committed a crime, and that's enormously difficult
to prove."
The unity agreement calls for respect for the rule of law. But opposition Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, aware that the issue is sensitive enough among the security chiefs to derail the new government, has been vague about prosecution of those guilty of major abuses. Tsvangirai is intimately familiar with those abuses: He was arrested and beaten by police in 2007 and has narrowly escaped assassination several times. In 1997, security agents tried to throw him out the window of his office in a multistory building. Some senior MDC members favor immunity deals for the security chiefs as the price for a peaceful transition and the move to freer elections in two years. Zimbabwean civic activist organizations support a truth and
reconciliation commission, which would be a lengthy and unwieldy process because of the number of crimes. The Human Rights Forum has recorded reports of 40,000 human rights violations since 2001, when it started collecting the information. Memories are raw for MDC activists who bore the brunt of political violence last year, when security forces and militias beat, raped and tortured thousands of Mugabe's opponents, leaving about 180 dead. The appetite for justice is huge.
But the healing process outlined by Tsvangirai duplicates the awkward compromise seen in the unity government. The three ministers for "national healing" - one from each party in the government - will hear Zimbabweans' complaints of abuses and decide how to respond to each case, Tsvangirai recently told a group of businessmen. Critics question whether victims and their families would feel safe enough to approach the ministerial group and make accusations - knowing that the perpetrators, often their neighbors, are at large. The ongoing trials of activists won't help people put fear behind them. Roy Bennett, released this month from the Mutare prison after a month in detention, said conditions there were appalling. "There are gross human rights abuses behind those walls. Five people died while I was inside, and
it took the prison officers four to five days to remove the bodies," he said. Violet Mupfuranhehwe's testimony about prison conditions is just as devastating. Her lawyer, Alec Muchadehama, said that 2-year-old Nigel saw her severely beaten in the Chikurubi maximum security prison. At one point he started crying. Her captors shouted at him to shut up, and hit him too, the lawyer said. There was no medicine in prison and so little food that dozens of inmates died late last year, prison staff members said.
Decomposing bodies were piled in the room next to the cell where Mupfuranhehwe was being held with Nigel and five other MDC women, her lawyer said. A Chikurubi prison employee, speaking to The Times on condition of anonymity for fear of dismissal, said 250 bodies were buried in a mass grave at the prison late last year. The government has made no comment on the allegations of poor prison conditions by Bennett and others.
As Alan Mutemagawu sat in the sunny doorway of his grandmother's house remembering the day the smiling people came for his mother, his little brother Nigel fidgeted nearby, gnawing on a cob of raw corn. When their grandmother, Jennifer Mupfuranhehwe, playfully asked Nigel, "Where were you?" he replied matter-of-factly, "In jail." She said her grandsons know their parents were jailed for being members of the MDC. She sees the charges against her daughter and son-in-law as just part of a long campaign to harass and frighten them, and said they prove that Mugabe and Zanu PF are still completely in control. "It's clearly showing that power is not coming to the MDC," she said. Alan didn't care about the government and power. He
just wanted his mother. "I wish she would come back," he said. And soon his
long wait was over. Violet Mupfuranhehwe came home.
Friday, March 6, 2009
Tsvangirai in Hospital, Wife Dead, Foul Play Suspected
Zimbabwe’s Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and his wife Susan have been involved in a car crash which has left her badly hurt, party sources say.
Mr Tsvangirai is said to be lightly injured. The accident is said to have happened on a road south of Harare.
Mr Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party, formed a unity government with President Robert Mugabe last month.
The two had been long-time rivals before agreeing a power-sharing deal.
MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa told Reuters news agency that Mr Tsvangirai was not in a critical condition.
“We have just heard that there was an accident of sorts involving the president of the party. Injuries, yes, but not critical condition, we are still assessing the actual condition,” he said.
In a development, we have just heard devastating news that Morgan Tsvangirai’s wife, Susan, has died from her injuries sustained in a car accident this afternoon.
Foul play is suspected. We’re now hearing that the tyre blew out, that the axel was faulty. It’s very unclear at the moment, but foul play is supected.
We’re all in a state of shock. Our hearts go out to Morgan Tsvangirai at this time.
Mr Tsvangirai is said to be lightly injured. The accident is said to have happened on a road south of Harare.
Mr Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party, formed a unity government with President Robert Mugabe last month.
The two had been long-time rivals before agreeing a power-sharing deal.
MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa told Reuters news agency that Mr Tsvangirai was not in a critical condition.
“We have just heard that there was an accident of sorts involving the president of the party. Injuries, yes, but not critical condition, we are still assessing the actual condition,” he said.
In a development, we have just heard devastating news that Morgan Tsvangirai’s wife, Susan, has died from her injuries sustained in a car accident this afternoon.
Foul play is suspected. We’re now hearing that the tyre blew out, that the axel was faulty. It’s very unclear at the moment, but foul play is supected.
We’re all in a state of shock. Our hearts go out to Morgan Tsvangirai at this time.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Bennett to stay in jail pending appeal
HARARE, March 5 (Reuters) - Zimbabwe's Supreme Court on Thursday granted prosecutors the right to appeal a ruling granting bail to Movement for Democratic Change official Roy Bennett, in a case that has raised tensions in a new government.
The court said Bennett will remain in custody until a hearing date is set.
The court said Bennett will remain in custody until a hearing date is set.
7,000 remand prisoners held illegally - magistrate
MATABELELAND North’s top magistrate today paints a grim picture of Zimbabwe’s justice system, revealing: “Once someone is remanded in custody, they are just as good as forgotten because their chances of being brought back to court are nil.”
The shock revelations by John Masimba, the provincial magistrate for Matabeleland North, is a damning indictment on the Justice Ministry.
While delays in bringing high profile political prisoners to court have drawn media attention, Masimba said in an interview that some 7,000 suspects in criminal cases in Bulawayo and Matabeleland alone are probably being held illegally in remand prison after prison authorities failed to bring them to court.
Zimbabwe’s Prison Service has not been spared by the country’s economic collapse. Authorities have been battling fuel and transport problems among a myriad of operational difficulties.
Today, Masimba says the new power sharing government of President Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai must restore order in the justice system.
“The failure by prison authorities to bring remand prisoners to court remains our biggest challenge. The backlog in criminal cases keeps on growing because nothing is being done as far as trials are concerned. It is our hope that the Ministry will prioritise transport if the justice delivery system is to be more effective,” Masimba said.
The magistrate said some suspects have been in remand prison for up to TWO YEARS and judges were now having to remand prisoners in absentia. In cases, the magistrate said, suspects would long have died in prison.
“Nothing is moving,” Masimba said, “and we wish these issues could be addressed expeditiously.”
Masimba revealed there was only ONE prison truck servicing the three Matabeleland regions of Bulawayo, Matabeleland North and Matabeleland South. That truck broke down last year and was taken to Harare for repairs. To date, it has not been returned.
Conditions in Zimbabwe’s jails are some of the harshest in the world. Food shortages are common. Last year, hundreds of inmates had to be released on health grounds. Most were suffering from pellagra, a protein deficiency disease. Those were the lucky ones as thousands die every year behind bars.
The shock revelations by John Masimba, the provincial magistrate for Matabeleland North, is a damning indictment on the Justice Ministry.
While delays in bringing high profile political prisoners to court have drawn media attention, Masimba said in an interview that some 7,000 suspects in criminal cases in Bulawayo and Matabeleland alone are probably being held illegally in remand prison after prison authorities failed to bring them to court.
Zimbabwe’s Prison Service has not been spared by the country’s economic collapse. Authorities have been battling fuel and transport problems among a myriad of operational difficulties.
Today, Masimba says the new power sharing government of President Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai must restore order in the justice system.
“The failure by prison authorities to bring remand prisoners to court remains our biggest challenge. The backlog in criminal cases keeps on growing because nothing is being done as far as trials are concerned. It is our hope that the Ministry will prioritise transport if the justice delivery system is to be more effective,” Masimba said.
The magistrate said some suspects have been in remand prison for up to TWO YEARS and judges were now having to remand prisoners in absentia. In cases, the magistrate said, suspects would long have died in prison.
“Nothing is moving,” Masimba said, “and we wish these issues could be addressed expeditiously.”
Masimba revealed there was only ONE prison truck servicing the three Matabeleland regions of Bulawayo, Matabeleland North and Matabeleland South. That truck broke down last year and was taken to Harare for repairs. To date, it has not been returned.
Conditions in Zimbabwe’s jails are some of the harshest in the world. Food shortages are common. Last year, hundreds of inmates had to be released on health grounds. Most were suffering from pellagra, a protein deficiency disease. Those were the lucky ones as thousands die every year behind bars.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
State bids to keep Zimbabwe's Bennett behind bars
HARARE – A judge in Zimbabwe on Tuesday dismissed an application by the state to deny bail to a would-be junior minister but prosecutors said they will apply to the Supreme Court to keep him behind bars.
State prosecutor Chris Mutangadura said the state will challenge the Harare High Court's decision to throw out its application to appeal an order given last week to grant Roy Bennett bail.
Bennett, the treasurer of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), is Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's pick for deputy agriculture minister in the new unity government, but has yet to be sworn in.
"In terms of the law, nothing has changed," said Mutangadura after the ruling.
"Although the judge has dismissed our application for leave to appeal on the grounds that our chances of success are slim ... we will be filing to the Supreme Court against that decision."
Bennett was arrested as Tsvangirai was being sworn in on February 13, and was charged last week with possession of arms for banditry, insurgency and terrorism.
"The judge has dismissed the application for leave to appeal but nothing has changed as the state has indicated that it wants to go to the Supreme Court," Bennett's lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa told reporters.
His case has raised doubts about the durability of Zimbabwe's unity government, which was formed this month after nearly a year of turmoil stemming from disputed elections last March.
State prosecutor Chris Mutangadura said the state will challenge the Harare High Court's decision to throw out its application to appeal an order given last week to grant Roy Bennett bail.
Bennett, the treasurer of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), is Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's pick for deputy agriculture minister in the new unity government, but has yet to be sworn in.
"In terms of the law, nothing has changed," said Mutangadura after the ruling.
"Although the judge has dismissed our application for leave to appeal on the grounds that our chances of success are slim ... we will be filing to the Supreme Court against that decision."
Bennett was arrested as Tsvangirai was being sworn in on February 13, and was charged last week with possession of arms for banditry, insurgency and terrorism.
"The judge has dismissed the application for leave to appeal but nothing has changed as the state has indicated that it wants to go to the Supreme Court," Bennett's lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa told reporters.
His case has raised doubts about the durability of Zimbabwe's unity government, which was formed this month after nearly a year of turmoil stemming from disputed elections last March.
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