THE incarcerated Sunday Mail editor Edmund Kudakwashe Kudzayi was yesterday fingered as the brains been behind the popular Facebook page Baba Jukwa and charged with attempting to overthrow the government.
CHARLES LAITON STAFF REPORTER
Clad in a checked jacket, sky-blue shirt, maroon tie and a navy-blue soiled trousers, Kudzayi, who was in handcuffs, arrived at the Harare Magistrates’ Courts under heavy police guard led by officer-in-charge of law and order assistant Commissioner Chrispen Makedenge.
He was later led into court room number 6, where before the court proceedings started, he managed to crack a joke with several journalists saying: “You reporters must learn to greet your bosses, remember I am still the editor. I am your boss.”
Kudzayi (28), of 65 Brooks Drive Hillside in Harare, was picked up by the law enforcement agents last Thursday and charged with subverting a constitutional government, or alternatively, attempting to commit an act of insurgency, banditry, sabotage or terrorism.
The “computer guru”, according to the police, was also charged with publishing or communicating false statements prejudicial to the State or alternatively undermining authority of or insulting the president.
According to prosecutors, Kudzayi, acting in connivance with his elder brother who is said to be still at large – Phillip Tawanda Kudzayi – together with other unnamed suspects, created a Gmail account called [email protected] using an Econet line number 0771 446 541 registered in Phillip’s name. It is alleged the Gmail account, whose Econet line is still being used by Phillip, was used to create a Facebook account called Baba Jukwa. Harare Provincial Magistrate Vakayi Douglas Chikwekwe remanded him in custody to tomorrow for bail application after chief law officer Tawanda Zvekare and Kudzayi lawyer Joseph Mandizha agreed to have the matter postponed. Allegations against Kudzayi are that sometime in April last year, he connived with his elder brother Phillip and others still at large and “hatched a plan to overthrow the government by unconstitutional means” in the run-up to July 31 general elections. The State alleges, Kudzayi planned and organised with some of his colleagues calling themselves, The Gunda Nleya Brigade and Zimbabwe Revolutionary Army, to overthrow the government “through waging a war” and urged people to join the Zimbabwe Revolutionary Army. Pursuant to their plans, it is alleged, Kudzayi, posted articles on the Baba Jukwa Facebook page, which reportedly encouraged rebellion against the government if the July 31 general election was stolen. The State alleges Kudzayi and his group further posted articles on social networks to the effect that they had a dare rechimurenga in place and that a team was on the ground studying and monitoring the situation in Zimbabwe. The State however, contends that Kudzayi’s creation of the Baba Jukwa Facebook page was “meant for the consumption of Zimbabweans and to whip up emotions from those who would have read the said articles on Baba Jukwa’s Facebook account”.
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On May 11 this year, the Sunday Mail according to police, published a story about the alleged true identity of Baba Jukwa titled, Hackers unmask Baba Jukwa.
However, investigations revealed that Kudzayi was in control of Baba Jukwa’s Gmail account as his details were on the recovery panel of the same account.
The police, however, argue that their investigations revealed that the account was never hacked. The State also alleges that on August 7 2008 Kudzayi wrote and published an article in the Zimbabwe Mail online publication attacking President Robert Mugabe. In the said article according to the State, Kudzayi went on to “falsely label the president a dictator who commits gross human rights abuses”. Mugabe was also accused of having stolen the 2008 elections and that he had been presiding over an economic collapse. He further called the president “a tyrant” and accused him of taking the land from white farmers and giving it to his cronies and not the people of Zimbabwe. Kudzayi was charged in addition, with not ensuring that his four rounds of ammunition recovered by police in his house were not properly secured.
