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Court Reporter
LAWYER Ms Beatrice Mtetwa, who was the lead counsel in the case involving political activist Hopewell Chin’ono, is likely to face prosecution for contempt of court after a Harare magistrate yesterday ordered the Prosecutor-General to institute legal action against her.
Harare magistrate Mr Ngoni Nduna also disqualified Ms Mtetwa from representing Chin’ono in the matter in which he stands accused of inciting public violence by calling for the flopped July 31 protests.
The court also ordered that a copy of its ruling be handed to the Law Society of Zimbabwe (LSZ).
The development came after the State led by Ms Tendai Shonhai and Mr Whisper Mabhaudhi applied for her disqualification from the court proceedings because of a Facebook post in her name titled, “Beatrice Mtetwa and The Rule of Law.”
Ms Shonhai and Mr Mabhaudhi argued that Ms Mtetwa had proved that she had become personally involved and therefore diminished her objectivity as an officer of the court.
Mtetwa had distanced herself from the Facebook post saying the State’s actions were aimed at depriving Chin’ono to choose a lawyer of his choice.
In his ruling, magistrate Mr Nduna said from the evidence placed before the court, it was evident that there was a relationship between Ms Mtetwa and the Facebook post.
“The evidence called from Mr Chin’ono and in the submissions of counsel it is clear that the wall and lead counsel are not strangers to each other.
“They are actually bed mates. The documentary ‘Beatrice Mtetwa and the Rule of Law’ Facebook page was created to market, according to Mr Chin’ono, the lead counsel’s prowess as a human rights defender.
“Obviously, the lead counsel authorised and approved its coming into existence. In that breath she acceded to posts being made on it which posts are relevant to herself”.
Magistrate Mr Nduna also said because of the offensive nature of the post to the court, Ms Mtetwa was expected to have registered her disapproval of the post.
He also said Ms Mtetwa could not wash her hands like the biblical Pontias Pilate over the posts.
Magistrate Mr Nduna lambasted Ms Mtetwa for attempting to “style” and sell to the world the notion that Chin’ono was abducted upon his arrest.
The court said Mtetwa and her legal team were fully aware that Chin’ono had been legally arrested by the police when they went to publicise the alleged abduction through the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights.
“So clearly, we have a very experienced lawyer who comes out into the public domain to advise the world at large that Hopewell Chin’ono, a journalist who is exposing corruption, has been abducted in Zimbabwe by State agents,” said Mr Nduna in his ruling.
The court said to demonstrate Ms Mtetwa and her team’s lies they failed to challenge his placement on remand when they appeared in court.
“Despite this, the world was advised that the accused was abducted. I have seen it fit to relate to this because it gives out clearly the context within which the post in question must be viewed and the attitude inherent in them,” said the court.
The court said the post also portrayed a picture of a legal system and a court that was perpetuating the alleged abduction and took Chin’ono as a political prisoner.
Magistrate Mr Nduna said the world was invited to an outrage as a result of their actions. Ms Mtetwa, in the ruling, is said to have written two letters, which were in bad taste to the court.
She was accused of smuggling one of the letters into the court record.
The court said Ms Mtetwa, like the public prosecutors, was mandated to present her case in the utmost and diligent manner within the confines of acceptable legal process.
“A lawyer who is professionally seized with the matter does not conduct the case with such desperation.
“This moment you are in court arguing the case, the next you are writing letters in bad taste and smuggling them into the record and the next you are posting on social media that the whole trial process is for political expediency and that accused, your client, is a political prisoner and inviting the whole world to show its outrage,” said Mr Nduna.
The matter continues today with lawyer Advocate Taona Nyamakura taking over from Ms Mtetwa for Chin’ono’s fresh bail application on changed circumstances.
Online Reporter