State Is Persecuting Me: Chin’ono’

Hopewell Chin’ono has accused the State of persecuting and punishing him by throwing him in with convicted criminals at Chikurubi Maximum Prison.

Chin’ono said this during cross examination by his lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa, justifying his suitability to be granted bail on a charge of defeating or obstructing the course of justice.

He told the court that the State was being malicious in its handling of the case as it was without evidence linking him to the offence and labelling him as an incorrigible and unrepentant criminal.

“State is being malicious and is persecuting me. It is an insult for the State to call me an incorrigible criminal as I have never been convicted of any offence. This case is another example of persecution as the heart of the matter is about corruption in this case,” he said.

Chin’ono submitted that the State was relying on the wrong tweet and this was revealed by Detective Inspector Naison Chirape, the investigating officer of the case in his testimony before the court.

He argued that his continuous stay in detention without bail smacked of a hidden agenda to fix and keep him away from exposing corruption through social media.

“Opposition to bail is not being based on genuine reasons. It is some form of punishment for me to remain locked up for exposing corruption through tweeting.

He said that there is nothing wrong with his tweets that expose corruption as he will be using his journalistic licence that requires fair comment while exposing corruption.

Chin’ono also accused the State of applying selective justice by granting “real corrupt criminals” bail unopposed such as sacked minister of Health and Child Care Obadiah Moyo but those with petty issues were denied bail.

“I was denied bail four times by the National Prosecuting Authority,” he told the court. Nhau/Indaba

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