Supt Runganga was testifying in the trial of Ngarivhume on
charges of incitement to commit public violence or alternatively incitement to
participate in a gathering with the intent to promote public violence.
His charges arose after he allegedly posted messages
through his Twitter handle between March 1 and July 2020, calling for protests
against the Government.
Ngarivhume is denying the charges.
He disowned the Twitter handle, saying it was a ghost
account created in his name.
Giving evidence before Harare regional magistrate Mrs
Feresi Chakanyuka, Supt Runganga told the court that his office had been
following Ngarivhume’s tweets, which later changed to inviting the public to
participate in acts of violence.
Police concluded that his tweets amounted to a criminal
offence after they noticed that they had moved from opposition and a general
invitation to demonstrate to calls for more violent activity.
“From the flow of his tweets, he started by giving a
general invite to demonstrate, but from this tweet, he changed from being
peaceful to saying he would do whatever comes. He was now advocating people to
do whatever action they could, unlike in the previous tweets.
“Through intelligence we gathered, we noticed that people
were now mobilising other people to act in a rogue manner and we could tell
that public peace was no longer guaranteed,” Supt Runganga said.
He told the court that Ngarivhume cannot divorce himself
from the Twitter handle since he admitted to posting the tweet upon his arrest.
“I was following the trends of his tweets and we cannot divorce it from him as
it was under Jacob Ngarivhume. When interviewed by police, he never denied that
it was his Twitter handle,” Supt Runganga said.
He testified that he came to a decision to arrest Ngarivhume
after making a series of consultations with other commanders in the law
enforcement sector.
“I held meetings with other commanders and assessed the
ground and realised that there were other people who were incited. Some people
had already shown motivation, for example Jim Kunaka had already responded and
was arrested separately,” Supt Runganga said.
Asked during cross-examination by Ngarivhume’s lawyer
Professor Lovemore Madhuku whether the police had verified with Twitter to
ascertain the owner of the Twitter handle, Supt Runganga said they did not.
“I maintain that they were his and in his warned and
cautioned statement recorded at police, he did not deny that the tweets were
his. No we did not go to Twitter because of administrative requirements,” he
said.
Supt Runganga told the court that there are no servers for
Twitter in the country and they needed to engage some other countries to get
access to the Twitter servers.
Any such process would be done by another arm of the
Government.
The trial was adjourned to February 20.
The State led by Mrs Tendai Shonhai alleges that Ngarivhume
posted numerous messages on Twitter in an attempt to influence many people to
engage in public violence or participate in a gathering that would disturb peace.
In some of the messages, he said he met and consulted
different stakeholders including Mr Ian Makone, Dr Shingi Munyeza, Mr Elton
Mangoma and Godfrey Tsenengamu, as part of his efforts to mobilise people.
Herald
0 comments:
Post a Comment