Africa-Press – Zimbabwe. Citizens’ Coalition for Change (CCC) faction leader Jameson Timba and 34 party activists were handed wholly suspended sentences on Wednesday, November 27.
The group, which spent over five months in custody, was last week convicted of participating in an unlawful gathering.
Magistrate Collet Ncube sentenced Timba and Jaison Kautsa to two years imprisonment, wholly suspended for five years, on the condition that they don’t commit an offence involving an illegal gathering with the intent to promote public violence.
The other male activists were given 16 months also wholly suspended while female activists were sentenced to 12 months wholly suspended.
In his ruling, Ncube said most of the convicts were poor people while some of them were breadwinners, and first-time offenders deserving of a second chance, hence it was in the interest of justice to give a wholly suspended sentence. He said:
The court believes that since they are first offenders, they should be given another chance. Many of them struggle to raise even the fine, and most are breadwinners with unstable sources of income. Their continued detention would only burden their families.
Timba and 79 others were arrested at his Avondale house on a charge of holding an illegal gathering with intent to cause public violence.
Their party, however, maintained that they were commemorating the Day of the African Child which falls on 16 June.
For More News And Analysis About Zimbabwe Follow Africa-Press
