Two British journalists were deported from Zimbabwe Friday after being acquitted of working without accreditation and overstaying their visas.
Toby Harnden, 35, chief foreign correspondent of the Sunday Telegraph, and Julian Simmonds, 45, a photographer with the Daily Telegraph, were due to fly to South Africa last night after a magistrate gave them "the benefit of the doubt" on the visa charge and handed them over to immigration officials.
The magistrate, Never Diza had already acquitted them on the more serious charge of working without a state license, for which they could been jailed for two years.
PHOTO: AP
"We feel pleased that justice has been done in court today. We look forward to getting back to Britain, seeing our families and getting on with our lives," Harnden said.
Outside the court the two men were hugged by well-wishers and relatives, including Harnden's parents, who flew in from Britain and were in court for the verdicts.
The two were arrested on March 31 during Zimbabwe's parliamentary elections, when Simmonds was found taking photographs at a polling station.
They spent two weeks in jail in filthy, lice-ridden cells with meagre food rations after the government refused them bail. They appeared in court in handcuffs and wearing frayed khaki shorts and shirts.
Their defense lawyer, Beatrice Mtetwa, argued that they were visiting Zimbabwe as tourists and challenged the state to prove that they had worked as journalists.
Prosecutors produced seized notebooks and a camera, but they were unable to decipher Harnden's scribbled shorthand, and Simmonds' camera did not contain any images. The state did not produce any published material by the two.
President Robert Mugabe's government has so far failed to convict any journalists under its harsh anti-press law, the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA).
"The architects of AIPPA must go back to the drawing board, because it is not working," Mtetwa said. "The state is not able to get convictions."
ROCKY RELATIONS: The figures on residents come as Chinese tourist numbers drop following Beijing’s warnings to avoid traveling to Japan The number of Chinese residents in Japan has continued to rise, even as ties between the two countries have become increasingly fractious, data released on Friday showed. As of the end of December last year, the number of Chinese residents had increased by 6.5 percent from the previous year to 930,428. Chinese people accounted for 22.6 percent of all foreign residents in Japan, making them by far the largest group, Japanese Ministry of Justice data showed. Beijing has criticized Tokyo in increasingly strident terms since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last year suggested that a military conflict around Taiwan could
A pro-Iran hacking group claimed to breach FBI Director Kash Patel’s personal e-mail inbox and posted some of the contents online. The e-mails provided by the hacking group include travel details, correspondence with leasing agents in Washington and global entry, and loyalty account numbers. The e-mail address the hackers claim to have compromised has been previously tied to Patel’s personal details, and the leaked e-mails contain photos of Patel and others, in addition to correspondence with family members and colleagues. “The FBI is aware of malicious actors targeting Director Patel’s personal email information,” the agency said in a statement on
RIVALRY: ‘We know that these are merely symbolic investigations initiated by China, which is in fact the world’s most profligate disrupter of supply chains,’ a US official said China has started a pair of investigations into US trade practices, retaliating against similar probes by US President Donald Trump’s administration as the superpowers stake out positions before an expected presidential summit in May. The move, announced by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce on Friday, is a direct mirror of steps Trump took to revive his tariff agenda after the US Supreme Court last month struck down some of his duties. “China expresses its strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition to these actions,” a ministry spokesperson said in a statement, referring to the so-called Section 301 investigations initiated on March 11.
When a hiker fell from a 55m waterfall in wild New Zealand bush, rescuers were forced to evacuate the badly hurt woman without her dog, which could not be found. After strangers raised thousands of dollars for a search, border collie Molly was flown to safety by a helicopter pilot who was determined to reunite the pet and the owner. A week earlier, an emergency rescue helicopter found the woman with bruises and lacerations after a fall at a rocky spot at the waterfall on the South Island’s West Coast. She was airlifted on March 24, but they were forced to
RSS