FORMER war veterans leader Jabulani Sibanda, recently expelled from the Zanu PF party and is now facing jail for allegedly plotting to assassinate President Mugabe, was Tuesday granted $400 bail by a Harare magistrate.
Sibanda’s legal counsel Sobusa Gula-Ndebele subsequently made an application for referral to the constitutional court which was duly granted.
Earlier on, prosecutor Jonathan Murombedzi told the court that Sibanda was not a good candidate for bail as he had made threats against the State leader. But Gula-Ndebele said his client was a proper candidate for bail and also highlighted that Sibanda’s freedom was being trampled on, as charges he is facing are ultra vires the country’s constitution.
In the end Magistrate Vakayi Chikwekwe granted bail saying the State had failed to justify its opposition to Sibanda’s freedom.
Sibanda was also ordered to stay away from the Zanu PF elective congress that began in Harare Tuesday. Chikwekwe also ordered Sibanda not to mobilise anyone to march to State institutions, to report once every Friday at CID offices in Bulawayo and to surrender his passport with the clerk of court.
The fiery Sibanda, who has previously led terror campaigns across the country on behalf of Mugabe, has fallen foul of his master. Sibanda’s arrest followed his rant in which he accused the veteran Zimbabwe leader and his wife Grace of “plotting a bedroom coup”. He also allegedly threatened to mobilise the war veterans to march on State House.
It is the state case that on October 27, at Herbert Mine, Mutasa, the accused addressed an illegal gathering of war veterans.
The group had allegedly gathered at the mine purportedly for reburial of exhumed remains of deceased liberation war fighters, despite the event having been re-scheduled to a later date.
At around 1400hrs, Sibanda allegedly delivered a lengthy speech in which he accused Mugabe and his wife of plotting a ‘bedroom’ or a ‘boardroom’ coup.
The court also heard that Sibanda allegedly stated that the ‘coup’ was meant to remove the country’s Vice-President Mujuru from her current position within the ruling party and government, to be replaced by the First Lady.
It is further alleged that Sibanda told the gathering that he was not prepared for such a move as “power was not sexually transmitted”.