By A Correspondent- Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights’ Obey Shava, who is representing the MDC Alliance trio, Joanna Mamombe, Cecilia Chimbiri and Netsai Marova has expressed concern over the continous revision of his clients’ trial dates arguing that the development posed security risks on the girls.

Speaking shortly after the court appearing of the trio at Harare magistrates court Wednesday morning, Shava said:

“When we last appeared on the 31st July 2020, the agreement had been that the trial date would be the 26 August 2020 as opposed to the 16th of September 2020. But the court had advised that it would be entertaining the trial on 26th September 2020. From our side, we had no issues with 26 September, we agreed with it and at the material time, the state equally agreed to have the matter rolled over to the 26th September for trial.

All of a sudden, we received summons calling upon our clients to report at court today for the correction of an error which had occurred regards the trial date, so we came and advised that ….the court had pronounced it’s date as the 26th September as opposed to August 2020.

But the main issue, the main worry which we highlighted to the court is that this attendance, today’s attendance was not necessary. It exposes our clients to risks, we know what happened on the 31st July when we appeared, we were detained illegally by the security forces.

One of my clients was assaulted, and for the state to continuously summon my clients to appear unnecessarily before the court, is really unreasonable. It’s inhumane to say the least, so I highlighted that to the court and the court apologised for everything that happened to my client, but eventually we then agreed that we’ll be coming back on the 26th August for trial.”

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