OPPOSITION politician, Job Sikhala, returned home yesterday after spending over four months outside the country where he was seeking medical attention.
Sikhala went abroad after spending 595 days in pre-trial detention. He had been arrested for allegedly inciting public violence over the murder of opposition activist Moreblessing Ali killed in May 2022.
He was released in January this year.
The former Zengeza West MP was welcomed by family members, friends and lawyer Arnold Tsunga at the Robert Mugabe International airport.
Information secretary in Sikhala’s new pressure group, the National Democratic Working Group, Darlington Chingwena, said they do not expect Sikhala to be arrested over his comments about Zimbabwe’s deteriorating human rights’ record.
“It will be unfair and unconstitutional. We know that he committed no crime,” he said
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Activist Obert Masaraure, who has been working with Sikhala, echoed similar sentiments.
“I understand he has received numerous threatening calls, but we are aware that he is safe at the moment and we will continue to pray that he remains safe because we are aware that this regime can do anything,” he added
Sikhala addressed the United Nations Geneva Summit on Human Rights and Democracy on 15 May where he spoke out against the country’s deteriorating human rights record.
In his address, the former lawmaker chronicled Zimbabwe’s long history of human rights and how he suffered in detention at the hands of President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s regime.