After being illegally abducted, tortured and spending months in horrendous prison cells, the State is still determined to target a group of civic and political activists, who face charges of trying to overthrow the Mugabe regime.
All abductees were in court Monday and were formally charged. Their trials were set for June and July and the Attorney General's offices made submissions in court to have the bail of all 18 accused persons revoked.
Their defence teams submitted that there was no basis for such an action and that the AG's office was making unilateral decisions, by trying to cancel an agreement that had been made by the Principals to the unity government, to have them all released on bail pending trial.
The defence team told the court they hoped to bring in officers from the AG's office and people from the Joint Monitoring and Implementation Committee (JOMIC), to show that there had been a political agreement to grant them bail.
When Magistrate Chimhanda announced that the individuals, including civic leader Jestina Mukoko, journalist Shadreck Manyere, MDC officials Chris Dlamini and Ghandi Mudzingwa, had been indicted for trial, the prosecutor immediately asked for bail to be revoked and that they should all be remanded in custody.
15 activists actually appeared in court. Mudzingwa, Manyere and Dlamini are 'detained' and receiving treatment at the Avenues Clinic - having treatment for their injuries from torture during their incarceration. The 15 had only been released recently, after lawyers spent months fighting in the courts to have them released on bail.
Lawyer Andrew Makoni said: "The understanding is that the decision to place them on bail - after the State had strongly opposed to it in the first place - was because of an agreement reached by the Principals which was communicated to the Attorney General, who then prevailed upon his officers to consent to bail.'
Makoni said his team had readily agreed to this arrangement because they wanted their clients, who had suffered so much at the hands of state agents, to be released from custody.
He said: "Magistrate Chimhanda deferred the matter to tomorrow (Tuesday) to allow us to call in the evidence of officers from the AG's office - who communicated to us that this was a political kind of compromise, and also two officials from JOMIC who perhaps will have to confirm in court that it was indeed an agreement as the political parties, that the accused persons be admitted on bail."
The defence team said the latest developments send a very bad signal, especially to the international community. "Particularly when you take into consideration what we already know about the prisons. We know that those things are death traps and surely you can't expose somebody who had gained their liberty to again be exposed to those kind of situations.
"We believe that in all fairness and given the nature of the case they are facing - particularly the lack of evidence - we don't believe that there is any basis for them to be put back in custody," Makoni added.
This emphasises the difficult nature of the unity government, with Mutsekwa being tainted by the same brush, even though it's members from his MDC party who are being 'abused' by the State. Observers say it also highlights the fact that the MDC have no real power in this unity government.
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