Mahere fined US$500 over falsehood tweet charge
Fadzayi Mahere, a spokesperson for the CCC, was found guilty of disseminating false information that was harmful to the state and was sentenced to pay a US$500 fine.
Mahere was reprimanded by presiding judge Taurai Manuwere for hastily publishing that a baby had passed away without first independently verifying the social media claims.
Which lawyer, Manuwere questioned, “would take a video on social media, believe it to be true without verifying?”
“What she did is rumour mongering; she was supposed to verify with the police or the mother before publishing. She did not do so. She was reckless. So, her defence of mistake of fact is not genuine.
“She was reckless in her contact. Realising this, she continued. Clearly, therefore, the state did not prove elements of the main charge but proved the essential elements of the second charge.”
A punishment would trivialize the offense, prosecutor Sheilla Mupindu had claimed during aggravating.
She claimed that Mahere’s acts damaged police officers’ credibility by presenting them as lawbreakers.
Mupindu proposed a three-year prison term.
The magistrate took into account that she was a first-time offender when deciding on a sentence.
“You are a female offender aged 37; for the past 37 years you have been a law abiding citizen with no conviction. You have been on remand for almost two years and this trial took over 10 months.
“You spent 10 days in pre-trial incarceration. You did not premeditate to commit this crime … however, I’m not going to send you to prison because your moral blameworthiness is not too high.
“Custodial sentence will make you lose employment and cause suffering to your parents who rely on you,” said the magistrate, before slapping the politician with a fine.
#Mahere fined US$500 over falsehood tweet charge
#Mahere fined US$500 over falsehood tweet charge
