Police on Tuesday questioned the editor of a privately owned Zimbabwe weekly newspaper after it published an article alleging a scandal over ballot boxes and papers from last month’s elections, said the newspaper’s lawyer.
Davison Maruziva, editor of The Standard was summoned to Harare’s main police station to answer questions about a story published on April 10 stating that police arrested a district administrator found with seven ballot boxes and ballot papers at his home, said lawyer Linda Cook.
”They have not put any charges to him,” Cook said.
”They have asked him to come back tomorrow morning. They are likely to charge him then.”
In a lead story headlined ”DA held in elections scandal,” The Standard claimed the police arrested Nyashadzashe Zindove, the district administrator for Zaka, in southern Zimbabwe after he was found with ballot boxes and ballot papers after the March 31 elections.
The opposition Movement for Democratic Change slammed the elections as a ”massive fraud”, alleging ballot stuffing on polling day and intimidation leading up to vote.
President Robert Mugabe’s ruling Zanu-PF party won enough seats to secure a two-thirds majority in Parliament that will enable the veteran leader to make changes to the Constitution.
The Standard claimed the police also arrested a schoolteacher who was a presiding officer during the polls, after she lost a ballot box in unclear circumstances.
Police spokesperson Wayne Bvudzijena wrote to Maruziva dismissing the story as false and refuting comments attributed to him in the story.
”I never talked about the arrest of two people as I am not aware of any such arrests,” Bvudzijena said in the letter.
”We never talked about ballot papers allegedly found at the DA’s residence. In the interests of your readers and reputation of your paper I wish the story to be corrected.”
Publishing a false story intentionally is an offence under Zimbabwe’s tough media laws attracting a two-year jail term or a fine. – Sapa-AFP