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Fidelis Munyoro-Chief Court Reporter

POLITICAL activist Paddington Japajapa was this week thrown into prison to start serving a two-year jail term after the High Court rejected his bid to overturn his conviction and sentence for inciting public violence when the August 2018 elections results were being announced. 

Japajapa went into a tirade denouncing the results by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) and threatened to call for chaos in the country. His utterances were considered inflammatory by the State leading to his arrest and prosecution. 

 He was tried and convicted of breaching the country’s electoral laws and hit with three years’ imprisonment but with one year suspended on condition of good behaviour after his release. Japajapa, who was represented by Gift Mutisi, approached the High Court on appeal. 

A two-judge panel of then High Court judge Justice Felistus Chatukukuta, and Justice Pisirayi Kwenda siting as the appeals court on Monday rejected Japajapa’s appeal. 

Immediately after rejecting the appeal, Justice Kwenda committed Japajapa to prison to start serving his jail term.   In dismissing the appeal, Justice Kwenda noted that there was no compelling evidence for the High Court to interfere with the trial magistrate’s decision.

Japajapa was at the national command centre at Harare International Conference Centre, wearing full election observer’s regalia, when he was captured on a video clip addressing listeners out of the picture uttering the inflammatory words.

 The video clip was uploaded onto the internet platform, YouTube. 

During trial, Japapa denied the charge against him but admitted that it was him who appeared in the video. He, however, denied making the utterances attributed to him and sought to argue that the video was a “Photoshop” created by the State.

But after a full trial, the trial magistrate ruled that the video clip produced in court was authentic and credible for the State to rely on. On appeal, the High Court noted that Japajapa’s testimony was replete with contradictions to warrant the court’s acceptance of the decision of the trial magistrate.

The judges noted that Japajapa initially denied the charge that he had made the utterances attributed to him claiming the inflammatory utterances were added as “voice over” to his picture manipulated by the State to make it appear as if he had addressed a press conference and made the utterances.

 After conviction, all that changed, as he confessed in mitigation that he uttered the words forming the basis of the charge “as a result of temptation and emotional stress”. 

He sought to plead that his moral blameworthiness was reduced by the fact that he succumbed to temptation and the circumstances surrounding him.

“It does not make sense that the appellant would deny making the inflammatory utterances and in the next breath admit making them albeit innocently. It is either he uttered the words or he did not,” said Justice Kwenda ruling that the appeal against conviction lacked merit.

 On sentencing, Japajapa failed to advance specific allegations of a misdirection that the sentence induced a sense of shock as he simply asked the court to substitute one at its own discretion.

So, the court found no misdirection in the manner in which the trial court approached the issue of sentence.

“It (trial court) settled for imprisonment because it was of the view that the appellant’s utterances had a strong bearing on the disturbances that occurred on the day following his inflammatory statements,” said Justice Kwenda.

The disturbances were widespread and violent and the judge noted that at the time Japajapa was a senior member of the MDC Alliance and he should have known that his utterances would have a real impact on his flock. 

In her ruling in the trial court, Harare magistrate Mrs Learnmore Mapiye said Japajapa was accredited to monitor elections, but he ended up interfering with the announcement of results.

The trial court heard that on July 31, Japajapa held a press conference at a time election results were being announced by ZEC and threatened to call for chaos, claiming the elections had been rigged. Following the incitement by Japajapa, MDC-Alliance supporters violently stormed the city’s Central Business District in protest, leading to the destruction of property.