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Leonard Ncube Victoria Falls Reporter
SIXTEEN people facing public nuisance charges for allegedly staging a demonstration in Victoria Falls have made a court application to have the charges thrown out for lack of merit.

The 16 are Bryrn Potter (23), Louse Doran (38), Daniel Connolly (31), Ephias Mambume (36), Kelly Valley (33), Nikki Blythe (30), Danielle Ponter (33), and Sarah Norton (50), Dustin Labuschagne (31), Mkhululi Nyoni (42), Raphael Moyo (33), Guy Cock-Croft (27), Lawrence Benjamin Norton (53), Japhet Tshuma (48), Shane Peel (21), Marie Connolly (58).

Blythe resides in Borrowdale Brooke in Harare while the rest are from Victoria Falls.

Mambume is the MDC-T Councillor for Victoria Falls Ward 6 while Valley is the daughter of MDC-T’s Victoria Falls Ward 1 Councillor Margaret Valley.

The group hasn’t been asked to plead to failing to give notice of a gathering to the regulating authority and alternatively public nuisance.

Defence lawyer, Mr Thulani Nkala of Dube and Company told Victoria Falls magistrate Ms Lindiwe Maphosa that the State has no case against his clients.

Mr Nkala said police misdirected themselves by arresting the demonstrators when they could have only ordered them to disperse in terms of the Public Order and Security Act (POSA).

“We are here to make an application to quash charges in terms of Section 178 of the Criminal Procedure and Evidence Act. The State was notified about objections about the charges which are just a dragnet meant to arrest everyone,” said Mr Nkala.

He said in terms of POSA, there should be a convener of a meeting who could have been arrested instead of rounding up “everyone.”

Mr Nkala said the State had failed to provide a witness who was allegedly blocked by the accused demonstrators at the intersection of Livingstone Way and Park Way in the Central Business District.

“Carrying placards doesn’t prove failure to notify authority or blocking traffic. The only power vested with the police is to order the demonstrators to disperse provided there are issues to do with security or destruction of property,” said Mr Nkala.

The magistrate will make a ruling on the application on Thursday next week after prosecutor Mr Takunda Ndovorwi requested time to consider the defence submissions.The accused are out on $100 bail each and were each ordered to reside at their given addresses, not to interfere with witnesses and surrender travel documents to the Clerk of Court in Victoria Falls.