Night Shadaya Tawona (25) from Chitungwiza who was arrested after allegedly retweeting a tweet from a parody account pretending to belong to Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) chairperson Priscilla Chigumba has changed his plea after getting legal representation. Tawona initially pleaded guilty to charges of criminal insult after he retweeted a tweet which said,
I can’t wait for the election fiasco to come to an end. I could do with a holiday and some good sex. My body needs a break.
However, before Harare magistrate Rumbidzai Mugwagwa could sentence him, Tawona received legal representation from the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) and decided to change his plea. His lawyers told the court that Shadaya only pleaded guilty because he had been intimidated into doing so. The lawyers also told the court that Shadaya should not be charged for merely repeating what he saw on Twitter as there was no evidence that the account did not belong to Chigumba.
Magistrate Mugwagwa postponed the matter to the 16th of October.
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