A 25-YEAR-OLD Chitungwiza man who allegedly retweeted a
message from a ghost account named after the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission
chairperson Justice Priscilla Chigumba yesterday told the court that he
“mistakenly” pleaded guilty to the charges due to a misunderstanding of the
essential elements of the offence.
Night Tawona Shadaya, who is represented by Noble Chinhanu
from the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, told Harare magistrate Rumbidzai
Mugwagwa that she must record his plea as not guilty regardless of his initial
plea.
“In this matter, the accused person has never had intention
to commit the offence and was not afforded the chance to defend himself,”
Chinhanu said.
“The crucial fact, which was omitted in his record, is that
the accused was not made to enquire if the Twitter account he retweeted from
was fake or not fake. The accused only retweeted from the account which he
believed was Chigumba’s. If I posted something bad about myself and the
Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation picked it and reports on it, will they be
charged for criminal conduct?”
Chinhanu said the court should change Shadaya’s plea to not
guilty as the essential elements of facts were missing from his initial plea
recording.
The State, represented by Francisca Mukumbiri, opposed the
application, saying Shadaya must not belabour the court with an application to
change the plea as the court was only waiting for him to proffer special
circumstances of the matter as he was already convicted.
Mukumbiri said Shadaya must give a full explanation to the
court as to why he pleaded guilty and also why he was changing his plea.
“The accused apologised after pleading guilty to the
charges and he went further, opting to educate youths from retweeting messages
deemed malicious to other people. The ignorance of the law was not an excuse to
alter the plea,” Mukumbiri said.
Magistrate Mugwagwa postponed the matter to today to rule
on the application.
It is alleged that sometime in August this year, an unknown
person created a Twitter account in the name of Justice Chigumba and tweeted a
message which read: “I can’t wait for the elections fiasco to come to an end. I
could do with a holiday and some good sex. My body needs a break.”
The court heard that in the same month, Shadaya retweeted
the message from that Twitter account, thereby engaging in criminal insult
through his conduct, which seriously impaired Chigumba’s dignity.
Chigumba was alerted to the message by a friend and made a
police report. The court heard that Chigumba never owned a Twitter account.
Newsday
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