By Court Correspondent  | Zimbabwea activist and poet, William Chinyanga has just come out court in the case in which he is charged for terrorism at the Old Bailey, London. Wed-the first day of trial and Prosecutors spent the morning into the afternoon reading and arguing the charges against him before a judge and to a 13 member jury.

From 10am, the Prosecutor elaborated on the 4 charges which border on incitement to commit and to encourage terrorism. The speeches are centered on live videos streamed between 1st and 2nd Dec 2019.

The Prosecutor said on the 1st to the 2nd Dec 2019, he live-streamed to over 7,900 followers in a mixture of Shona and English and went far beyond legitimate complaints.

At the beginning of the hearing, the Police Officer who arrested William Chinyanga walked out of court to acknowledge to Simba Chikanza that he has truly received phonecalls over the nearly 2 year period, and (while sounding out as if he has been interested in hearing further witness evidence) claimed saying he telephoned back in 2019 but there was no voice mail service to take in messages. There was confusion when he at the same time demanded that Chikanza should not be allowed to testify, saying the current interpreter is enough to give witness evidence.

Chikanza asked how possible that was for his official phone to fail to go into voicemail, something that can be proven with the network provider, and why the officer failed to send text messages.

The officer said he does not send text messages, to which Chikanza charged saying there is far more communication to the officer in the form of emails and physical visits to police stations, plus link ups with police, prosecutors, and even the Attorney General. The officer left to go back into court saying he will liaise with the Defence Barrister. An hour later, the court security said they would allow Chikanza into the court gallery to which the latter refused saying it could thereby jeopadize his ability to be a witness as stated earlier. Chikanza walked away.

The hearing is slated to run for several days.