Phillip Warrington Taylor the British journalist arrested in Harare last Thursday sneaked out of Zimbabwe at the weekend to avoid trial and a possible two-year jail term.
Taylor was arrested by Central Intelligence Organisation agents at the Harare International Airport last Thursday while boarding a home-bound flight - for allegedly practising journalism without permission.
He was granted bail by a Harare magistrate the following day and was ordered to surrender his passport. By Wednesday afternoon, when it became apparent that Taylor had skipped bail his lawyer Harrison Nkomo told the court that his client had fled.
"I have gathered that Taylor skipped bail and sneaked out of the country over the weekend and so his trial cannot go ahead," the lawyer said.
The magistrate immediately issued a warrant of arrest on Taylor in the event he was located still within the borders of Zimbabwe or in friendly countries with whom Zimbabwe has an extradition treaty.
On his arrest Taylor denied that he had at any one time practised journalism during his month-long stay in the country, insisting he was a tourist.
Under Zimbabwe's Access to Information and Privacy Act (AIPPA), it is a criminal offence for local and foreign journalists to practise journalism without accreditation from the Media and Information Commission (MIC).
However, the Global Agreement signed on September 15 by Zimbabwe's political protagonists scraps this section of the law and also makes the MIC an "illegal entity" without powers to sanction the operations of media personnel in the country.
Government has however disregarded this part of the September 15 agreement and has proceeded to harrass journalists, local and foreign, on the basis of the nullified sections of AIPPA.
Many journalists including several local practitioners were barred from covering the political negotiations that have been going on in Zimbabwe recently.
Only a handful of foreign journalists still remain in the country after most were expelled a few years ago when BBC and CNN were banned in Zimbabwe
This story appeared on news 24. Nov 11 2008
Tuesday
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