The Daily
News is facing a fresh State onslaught following false claims by Zimbabwe’s
controversial First Lady Grace Mugabe late last year that former Vice President
Joice Mujuru owns a 10 percent stake in the newspaper.
Police
have now obtained a court order, signed by Harare Provincial Magistrate Vakayi
Douglas Chikwekwe on December 18, 2014, authorizing them to search and seize
key documents pertaining to the ownership of the newspaper’s parent company
Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe (ANZ).
Two
police officers from the CID law and order section stormed the company’s Harare
offices on Tuesday, armed with the warrant of seizure.One of
the police details identified himself only as Superintendent Viera, while his
colleague flatly refused to do so.
Grace
first made the outrageous claim that Mujuru had bought a 10 percent
shareholding in the country’s leading newspaper, the Daily News, while
addressing one of her controversial “Meet the People” rallies at her vast
Mazowe business hub in October last year.Addressing
mainly war collaborators and youths, she accused Zimbabwe’s top-selling daily —
that was violently and unjustly shut down by her husband’s government in
September 2003, and which only returned to the news stalls in late March 2011
of publishing negative stories about her in the alleged service of Mujuru.
“Don’t be
surprised to see negative stories of me every day. She (Mujuru) bought 10
percent of Daily News.
A week
earlier, the quarrelsome and increasingly influential First Lady brazenly
incited Zanu PF supporters against journalists from the newspaper at another
rally held in Marondera, alleging that the country’s number one media brand was
being used by factional leaders to wage a war against her.
Commenting light-heatedly at the time on Grace’s utterances, ANZ group editor Stanley
Gama said he could only thank the First Lady for working so hard to market the
popular daily “with such admirable zeal”.
“It is
good to see that Mrs Mugabe continues to confirm very openly the fact that she,
her husband and her family are avid readers of our paper, which is
understandable given that hundreds of thousands of other Zimbabweans have long
decided that our winning, credible journalism is the best on the market,” he
said.
“While
she is plainly wrong about Mrs Mujuru having shares in the Daily News, I must
also, nevertheless, thank the First Lady for continuing to market our
inimitable paper with such admirable zeal, particularly today where she did
this without inciting violence against our staff,” Gama said.
But there
was neither humour nor a festive spirit in the conduct of the two police
officers who stormed the newspaper’s offices this week.The court
order that they carried and which took a surprisingly long two weeks to effect,
was given by Chikwekwe in terms of section 54(2)(b) of the Criminal Procedure
and Evidence Act.It
directed the police to search for details of ANZ’s shareholders — information
that is easily obtainable from the Registrar of Companies and from media
regulation authorities.
Even more
surprising, the warrant of seizure itself that they brought to the Daily News’s
offices suggested that they already had this information anyway, rendering
their mission almost pointless.Part of
the warrant directed that ANZ directors “provide copies of list and details
(particulars) of shareholders pertaining to the current allotment for ANZ and
any other documents in relation to the said shareholder allotment”.
It
further suggested, rather revealingly, that “an offence of criminal abuse of
office as defined in section 174 of the Criminal law codification and Reform
Act has been committed” — an allegation that Mujuru’s Zanu PF enemies have
consistently directed at her.However,
the warrant did not identify who the actual accused was, and was also silent on
the nature and details of the alleged offence, just as it did not say where the
offence was committed as well as the supposed beneficiary of the abuse.
Alec
Muchadehama, the ANZ’s lawyer, said yesterday that the police details who
visited the Daily News had flatly refused to shed light on the identity of not
just the accused, but also the complainant.
“We are
considering challenging the validity of the warrant,” he said.Although
he had availed to authorities on Wednesday the “relatively insignificant”
information that they wanted, Muchadehama had still objected to the police
regarding the fact that the warrant of search and seizure did not identify
anyone as the accused, “which essentially made it irregular and incapable of
being executed”.
Meanwhile,
lickspittle State media had already reported earlier this week that police were
investigating “high-profile corruption cases” involving firms linked to Mujuru
and had already allegedly “retrieved vital documents” that could form the core
of the probe.“Sources
said that much headway had been made in the last few days, but would not shed
more light for fear of jeopardising the investigations.
“We are
still in the process of searching the companies and we have found some of the
evidence we need. We have not yet questioned her (Mujuru) but we will
definitely do so,” a source allegedly told The Herald.
The paper
also reported that it had it “on good authority” that findings had since been
presented to senior officers at Police General Headquarters in Harare.“The
matter is being handled as a sensitive issue and senior police officers are
being briefed on a daily basis on the latest developments,” it said.
The team
probing targeted companies was allegedly led by Chief Superintendent Luckson
Mukazhi, who is said to have visited some of the companies to carry out the
investigations.This
followed the issuance of warrants by the courts to search companies allegedly
linked to Mujuru and her other assets after she was fired from Government for
behaviour inconsistent with the discharge of her duties as a public official.
The Daily
News only came back to the market just over three years ago after it was
unjustly shut down in 2003 by President Robert Mugabe’s government for “telling
it like it is” as its motto goes.
The
newspaper and its staff have been under incessant threats and pressure from
Zanu PF bigwigs since it came back, including facing hundreds of millions of
American dollars in vexatious lawsuits, 99 of which never even reach the courts.
Until
Mugabe’s and ZANU PF’s contested electoral victories last year, the newspaper
was banned from circulating in certain parts of the country, with its editorial
staff often still barred from covering some State functions.ZANU PF
apparatchiks have also routinely tried, unsuccessfully, to allege falsely that
the newspaper is a beneficiary of Western donor funding.
A company
spokesman said yesterday that they were watching events very closely.“It is
obviously of concern that ANZ is once again being put under unnecessary and
unjust pressure by some in positions of power, when we should all be working
together to strengthen the country’s nascent democracy and the well-being of
its people.“We are,
however, confident that common sense will prevail soon, particularly seeing
that the information that law enforcement agents say they are looking for is
available publicly.