The trial of MDC-Alliance vice chairperson and legislator Job Sikhala on charges of inciting public violence charges by urging others to an join illegal demonstrations last year, opened yesterday with Sikhala denying he posted the video and audio messages attributed to him and arguing that even if he had, the charges violated his constitutional rights.
The State alleges Sikhala incited the public to commit public violence after allegedly urging people to join illegal demonstrations between March 31 and August last year.
When his trial opened at the Harare Magistrates Court yesterday, Sikhala, who was represented by Mr Harrison Nkomo and Mr Jeremiah Bamu, argued that his charges were in violation of his constitutional rights of free association, of assembly and of freedom of expression.
Sikhala also claims that he was denied certain documents by the State, which would have allowed him to fully prepare his defence against the allegations.
On the actual State evidence scheduled to be presented, Sikhala denied posting the video and audio messages attributed to him on social media inciting people to demonstrate and challenged the State prove processes used in origination and or posting of the said video or audio messages. He objected to the production of the video clips.
The officer-in-charge at the police cyber laboratory, Mr Munyaradzi Naison Silomonyi, a specialist in mobile forensics, was the first State witness and he chronicled how they downloaded videos, which Sikhala allegedly posted.
“On October 5, 2020 I received a request from detectives to download a video from YouTube in which Job Sikhala was calling for action against the Government. At a later date, the detectives visited my office and revealed to me that they had identified the actual video they were looking for.
“During investigations detectives visited my office requesting other particulars of the video and I made use of two tools, Osint and domain views CAIN tools. I extracted part of the information shown by the tools so that the investigating officer could have a view of the video,” said Mr Silomonyi.
Silomonyi said he noted that the videos were loaded by an online television platform.
Sikhala through his lawyers objected to the production of the videos downloaded by the State, questioning their authenticity.
Regional magistrate Mrs Vongai Guwuriro is expected to make a ruling on the objection tomorrow. Mr Garudzo Ziyadhuma and Ms Tendai Shonhai appeared for the State.