HUMAN rights activist Robson Chere has served Home Affairs minister Kazembe Kazembe and the Civil Aviation Authority of Zimbabwe (CAAZ) director general with a notice of intention to sue for his abduction and alleged torture by State security agents about three months ago.
One July 31, Chere together with Namatai Kwekweza, Samuel Gwenzi and Vusumuzi Moyo were pulled off a Victoria Falls-bound plane at the Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport and reported to have been tortured following their abduction.
The trio were accused of participating in a protest at the Harare magistrates’ court in solidarity with 78 other members of the opposition Citizens Coalition for Change who were arrested for unlawful gathering a month earlier.
Three human rights activists who were arrested on the run-up to 44th Ordinary Sadc Summit of Heads State and Government have since been granted US$150 bail each by the High Court.
Their bail conditions are that they should report to the police every last Friday of the month. They were also ordered to refrain from interfering with State witnesses and must reside at specified residential addresses.
However, in two separate letters penned to Kazembe and CAAZ director general Elijah Chingosho respectively gleaned by NewsDay, Chere said he was sueing for damages for unlawful arrest
Chere is being represented by the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights on his bid.
“This letter serves as a notice of intention to sue you for damages for unlawful arrest, detention, unlawful assault or torture, pain and suffering, humiliation and affront to dignity, trauma and nervous shock arising from our client’s forced ejectment from an outward bound domestic flight at Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport and incommunicado detention.”
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Chere told NewsDay’s sister paper The Standard that during interrogation he was beaten up until he passed out.
In 2021, Chere together with human rights lawyer Douglas Coltart and three pro-democracy campaigners Jessica Drury, Munyaradzi Ndawana and Precious Ndlovu sued Kazembe Kazembe and Zimbabwe Republic Police Commissioner-General Godwin Matanga and the National Prosecuting Authority for ZWL$12,5 million as damages for wrongful and malicious arrest and prosecution on charges of plotting to foment civil obedience in Zimbabwe.
