Paul Nyathi

The High Court on Friday released investigative journalist Hopewell Chin’ono on bail, two weeks after he was arrested on charges of obstructing justice.

The journalist spent over 40 days in a Harare maximum security prison after he was arrested in July for allegedly inciting protests through Twitter posts.

He is among tens of government critics who have been detained in the past four months.

High Court judge Tawanda Chitapi ruled Friday that a magistrate’s court erred in denying Chin’ono bail.

The judge, however, warned the journalist against posting messages deemed as obstructive to justice on his Twitter page.

“Justice Chitapi found that the magistrate grossly misdirected herself in denying the journalist bail,” the journalist’s lawyer Douglas Coltart said.

Mr Chin’ono says he is being persecuted for speaking out against corruption cases in which President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s family was implicated.

In October, a High Court judge released him on bail on condition that he does not tweet any material that incites protests.

The latest arrest was linked to a tweet in which the journalist said he had information that prosecutors would not challenge a bail application by ZANU PF linked Henrietta Rushwaya, who had been caught at the Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport trying to smuggle six kilogrammes of gold to Dubai.

One of her accomplices had told detectives the gold belonged to First Lady Auxillia Mnangagwa.

Chinono was charged with “contempt of court and defeating or obstructing the course of justice” over the tweet.