By A Correspondent- Journalist Hopewell Chin’ono will remain in prison at least until Tuesday, August 18, after magistrate Ngoni Nduna postponed a ruling into a prosecution application for defence lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa to stand down for contempt.

State prosecutors made an application seeking the magistrate to bar lead lawyer Mtetwa from representing Chin’ono in court.

State prosecutor Whisper Mabhaudhi accused Mtetwa of posting comments on her Facebook page, Beatrice Mtetwa and the Rule of Law. Mtetwa said she did not have any social media accounts, but advised the court that the page is run by a Boston based filmmaker, Lorie Conway.

An accomplished human rights defender, Mtetwa is the only African besides Nelson Mandela to have received the Ludovic Trarieux International Human Rights Prize from France.

Meanwhile, the High Court says Transform Zimbabwe leader Jacob Ngarivhume and Chin’ono should be allowed visits by their lawyers and doctors, and to confer with both in private. Prison authorities were denying the two men unsupervised visits since their July 20 arrest.