High Court judge justice Edith Mushore has temporarily released Journalist Hopewell Chin’ono’s passport for 21 days so that he seeks medical attention in South Africa.
The judge however suspended the journalist’s reporting conditions in the interim.
In her ruling, the judge restricted Chin’ono’s travel to Gauteng Province only, where he stated in his application for relaxation of his bail conditions that he wanted to go.
Chin’ono is on bail on charges of obstructing the course of justice.
Meanwhile, High Court judge Justice Happias Zhou set aside magistrate Ngoni Nduna’s ruling which barred human rights lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa from representing journalist Hopewell Chin’ono and ordered the magistrate to recuse himself from the case.
Mtetwa was Chin’ono’s lawyer in a matter in which he is being accused of inciting public violence before the abortive July 31 demonstrations.
Justice Zhou also ruled that Nduna should recuse himself from Chin’ono’s criminal case and ordered that a new magistrate should take over the proceedings.
