Democracy activist Itai Dzamara is reported to have been found at Harare Central Police Station Wednesday afternoon, but the reports have not been verified.
A message circulated on Wednesday claimed that the 36 year old man has been located inside the cells. This came just as photographs of the dead body of a burnt man of the same height as him was circulated on social networks.
ZimEye.com had at 4PM been promised to receive an official statement by Police Spokesperson Charity Charamba who said she would issue it out in an hour’s time but her telephone number became unreachable shortly afterwards.
The Central Intelligence Organisation’s agents are said to have abducted the activist and journalist when he went missing in Harare’s Glen View outpost on Monday morning.
Dzamara was violently apprehended by five unknown men at a barber shop as on Monday morning who sped from the scene in a white Isuzu twin cab vehicle according to witnesses. His abductors were travelling in that bakkie vehicle which had a “blurred” number plate, the Lawyers for Human Rights’ group said.
Witnesses have said the men accused him of stealing a cow.
On the day of his abduction, Dzamara’s phone was ringing continuously without being answered. The following day, Tuesday it responded as having been switched off just as his wife and family struggled to know his whereabouts.
While a social networking page speculated Wednesday with a photograph of a burnt man alleged to be that of Dzamara, the ZLHR reported that they “have since filed an urgent… application to compel whoever is holding Dzamara to bring him before the court so as to determine if he should really be in detention.”
Dzamara had been staging an on-off protest in central Harare calling for President Robert Mugabe to step down. Police in the capital beat him unconscious in November 2014, and attacked a rights lawyer who had gone to his defence.
Police Statement:
The Police told ZimEye.com on Wednesday afternoon they have launched “a massive search” to find facts on the abduction Itai Dzamara on Monday. A junior Police spokesperson told ZimEye.com “but at present the assailants are not known, and so we are doing out best.” The most senior of spokesperson Charity Charamba answering calls, told ZimEye.com she would communicate fully in an hour’s time Wednesday concerning Dzamara. “I am in a meeting at the moment, please call me back after an hour,” she said in part.