The Supreme Court is today expected to hear an appeal against both conviction and a two-year jail term imposed on political activist Paddington Japajapa for inciting public violence when the August 2018 elections results were being announced.
He was thrown in jail last October after the High Court rejected his appeal from the magistrates court for lacking merit, but he has managed to get a hearing before the Supreme Court for a second appeal.
Japajapa had in his first appeal at the High Court argued the trial court blundered at law in basing his conviction on video evidence whose authenticity and reliability had been put in issue without, first of all, pronouncing itself on whether or not the video was authentic and reliable.
He had also argued that the trial court got it wrong when it placed reliance on the evidence of a witness called by the prosecution to testify as an expert yet his testimony consisted of speculation or conjecture.
In dismissing the appeal, Justice Kwenda, sitting with Justice Felistas Chatukuta, now elevated to the Supreme Court, noted that there was no compelling evidence for the High Court to interfere with the trial magistrate’s decision.
During his original trial, Japajapa initially denied the charge that he had made the utterances attributed to him claiming the inflammatory utterances were added as “voice over” to his picture manipulated by the State to make it appear as if he had addressed a press conference and made the utterances.
After conviction, all that changed, as he confessed in mitigation that he uttered the words forming the basis of the charge “as a result of temptation and emotional stress”.
He sought to plead that his moral blameworthiness was reduced by the fact that he succumbed to temptation and the circumstances surrounding him.
Japajapa went into a tirade denouncing the results announced by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) and threatened to call for chaos in the country. His utterances were considered inflammatory by the State leading to his arrest and prosecution.
He was tried and convicted of breaching the country’s electoral laws and hit with three years’ imprisonment but with one year suspended on condition of good behaviour after his release.
Japajapa was at the National Command Centre at Harare International Conference Centre, wearing full election observer’s regalia, when he was captured on a video clip addressing listeners out of the picture uttering the inflammatory words. The video clip was uploaded onto the internet platform, YouTube.
During trial, Japajapa denied the charge against him but admitted that it was him who appeared in the video. He, however, denied making the utterances attributed to him and sought to argue that the video was a “Photoshop” created by the State.
On sentencing, Japajapa failed to advance specific allegations of a misdirection that the sentence induced a sense of shock as he simply asked the court to substitute one at its own discretion.
Following the incitement by Japajapa, MDC-Alliance supporters violently stormed Harare city centre in protest, leading to the destruction of property.
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