Harare(ZimEye)-Socialist firebrand Munyaradzi Gwisai who is also a University lecturer has been sentenced to 420 community service coupled with a $500 fine on allegations of conspiring to cause public violence.
Jarabini suspended twelve months on condition that they performed community service and a further twelve months was suspended on condition that the accused persons does not within a period of five years commit an offence of the same nature on top of paying a $500 fine failure of which the accused persons would serve the alternative sentence which is ten months.
In passing sentence Harare magistrate Kudakwashe Jarabini considered the six accused persons’ carrier objectives leading to what he referred to as a lenient sentence but went on to point that the facts tendered by the six accused as mitigation was not an a justification for them to committee offences.

Responding to the court’s verdict, defense lawyer Aleck Muchadehama notified the court of his intention to appeal against both sentence and conviction at the high court.
In his submissions Muchadehama applied for time to pay which was successfully granted. The accused persons were ordered to pay the fine by the 26^th of March while the community service would commence on 30 March after the application for the suspension of the community service is heard on 26 March.
Meanwhile a number of University of Zimbabwe students were have been arrested while celebrating the non-custodial sentence handed down to their lecturer and his accomplices. The students were singing and ululating at the court entrance inviting the police to disperse them and other leaders of the civil society including the militant Secretary General of ZCTU Raymond Majongwe.
Addressing journalists after the court session, Muchadehama said he remained hopeful that he would succeed in his application at the high court.
Gwisai together with 44 other labour activists was arrested on February 19 last year at Zimbabwe Labour Centre, at Number 43 Julius Nyerere Way in Harare where they were charged with treason a charge which was to be later altered to lesser serious charge of conspiring to cause public violence after the state failed to prove its case.(ZimEye, Zimbabwe)