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Third night in jail for journos
05/04/2008 21:05 - (SA)
Harare - Lawyers for two foreign journalists arrested in Zimbabwe lodged on Saturday a legal bid with the high court demanding their immediate release, but the pair faced a third night in a Harare jail.
New York Times correspondent Barry Bearak, 58, and a 45-year-old journalist from Britain were picked up at a Harare guest house on Thursday and later charged with illegally reporting on Zimbabwe's general elections.
Their lawyers say the attorney general has decided the journalists have no case to answer and have launched a legal effort to force their release.
"The police have refused to comply with the attorney-general's directive so we are doing an urgent application today to compel the police to release them," lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa told AFP.
The application was later filed at the high court but the lawyers said they were not given a hearing date and that this would not happen until Sunday at the earliest.
The New York Times reported on Saturday that their correspondent had been recharged with "falsely presenting himself as a journalist" after police realised that an earlier charge of working without accreditation was outdated.
Zimbabwean authorities barred most foreign media from covering last Saturday's general elections and had warned they would deal severely with journalists who sneaked into the country.
However a number of news organisations, including the BBC, have been filing reports from correspondents operating under cover.
Mugabe's government passed a media law on the eve of the last presidential elections in 2002 which has been invoked to expel foreign correspondents and shut down at least four independent newspapers.
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