2 HH 547-23 CA 480/19 “If people come to rallies it means they appreciate the candidate. You cannot follow a candidate whom you cannot vote for. So we are saying all those people who were coming for example in Mkoba the stadium was full to capacity with more than 45 000 people. In Mutare, I attended. In Masvingo, I attended. Chamisa was pulling more than 30 to 40 000 and now we are seeing a different scenario altogether. So we are saying, as people of Zimbabwe this is a watershed election. It’s a do or die we are not going to accept this rubbish. ZEC must do the right thing by announcing the proper results. Failure to do this as a leader of Civic Organization, I am going to call for chaos in this country. We are not concerned about the consequences. We want the right thing to be done. And we are going to have an audit of this election and if there are any irregularities I am sorry as Civic Society Organizations we are not going to accept this rubbish……” It is common cause that on the following day members of the MDC Alliance political party, of which the appellant is a member, protested the results announced by the national Command Centre in countrywide civil unrest which turned violent. The State case was based on a video clip uploaded onto an internet online platform known as YouTube. The video evidence was downloaded and preserved on compact disc by a state witness who testified at the appellant’s trial. It depicts the appellant at the Harare International Conference Centre (HICC) wearing the full election observer’s regalia which included a bib, addressing listeners out of the picture and uttering the inflammatory words. It was the State case that the video was genuine because the appellant was, indeed, at the HICC on the day in question and wearing the election observer regalia. The appellant denied the charge. He admitted that he was at the HICC on the 31 July 2018 as an accredited agent of the MDC Alliance. He also admitted that it is him who appeared in the video and that it correctly depicts what he was wearing on the day in question. He however, denied, making the utterances attributed to him in the charge. He said the video was created by the State through a process called ‘photo shopping’. He explained that by ‘photo shopping’ he meant that his correct image was used, accompanied by some voice over, to make it appear as if he had addressed a press conference and made the inflammatory statements. He put the State to the proof of its allegations against him. Evidence adduced at the trial The State called two witnesses. The first to give evidence was Jealousy Nyabasa. He was an Assistant Commissioner in the Zimbabwe Republic Police at the time of giving evidence. In July, 2018 he was deployed to police the Harare area during the harmonized election held during that period. On the 31st July, 2021, in the evening, he was watching a show called ‘Just Imagine’