Millionaire Zimbabwean businessman John Bredenkamp was freed on bail late on Tuesday after four days in custody.
Bredenkamp (66) was arrested in a dawn raid on Friday at his farm outside Harare for suspected tax evasion, foreign currency and passport violations.
But prosecutor Wisdom Gandanzara told the court on Tuesday that he would only be charged with using a South African passport, an offence carrying a Zim$4-million ($40) fine.
Zimbabweans are not allowed to travel on a foreign passport.
Judge Mishrod Guvamombe set bail at Zim$5-million ($50).
Bredenkamp’s lawyer, Eric Matinenga, said he had been held in police cells ”on the basis of some kind of spite”.
The defence plans to ask the court Wednesday to dismiss the remaining charge, Matinenga said.
Bredenkamp declined to discuss the case, but told reporters he did not regret returning to Zimbabwe last week to confront the accusations against him.
”At least I have got out,” he said.
The ex-rugby captain has homes in Britain, Spain and Zimbabwe.
He reputedly made his fortune smuggling tobacco and weapons for the former white racist Rhodesian government, and was once rated one of the 100 richest people in Britain.
He currently has business interests in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and is reported to be a close associate of prominent government figures at a time when
thousands of other white Zimbabweans have been forced off their farms in a controversial land redistribution programme. – Sapa-AP