Zimbabwe court frees opposition leader on suspended sentence after 5 months in detention

HARARE, Zimbabwe — A Zimbabwean court freed an opposition leader and 34 activists Wednesday after sentencing them to suspended prison terms for participating in what authorities termed an unlawful gathering.

Magistrate Collet Ncube sentenced Jameson Timba, interim leader of a faction of the splintered Citizens Coalition for Change party, to a suspended two-year prison term after he and the activists had been held for more than five months in custody. The activists received lesser prison terms, also wholly suspended.

The magistrate convicted Timba and the activists last week. He acquitted 30 others who had been detained alongside Timba.

Police arrested them at Timba's residence in the capital, Harare, and charged them with disorderly conduct and participating in a gathering with the intent to promote violence, breaches of peace or bigotry. The court acquitted them of the disorderly conduct charges in September.

Their lawyers said they were at the house for a barbecue to commemorate the Day of the African Child, a calendar event of the African Union.

Amnesty International described the detention as ''part of a disturbing pattern of repression'' by Zimbabwean authorities under President Emmerson Mnangagwa and called for an investigation into allegations that some of the activists were tortured while in police detention.

Mnangagwa's ruling ZANU-PF party has long been accused of using the police and courts to quash opposition, including under the autocratic former President Robert Mugabe, who ruled for 37 years before Mnangagwa replaced him in a coup in 2017.

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