HARARE – A Zimbabwean magistrate on Tuesday granted bail to five white commercial farmers, including former Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) president Trevor Gifford who was arrested in the farming town of Chipinge last week.

According to the CFU, the magistrate in the eastern border city of Mutare granted US$200 bail to each of the farmers and ordered them to return to court in two weeks time.

“The farmers have been granted US$200 bail each and have been ordered to reside on their properties. They have also been ordered to come back to court in two weeks time,” CFU director Hendrik Olivier told ZimOnline.

Gifford, the immediate past president of the CFU was arrested in Chipinge on Thursday where he had gone to deliver a High Court order setting aside an eviction ruling a local magistrate passed against four white farmers in the southeastern farming town last Tuesday.

Chipinge magistrate Samuel Zuze convicted Algernon Taffs of Chirega Farm, Dawie Joubert of Stilfontein, Mike Odendaal of Hillcrest and Mike Jahme of Silverton Farm for refusing to vacate their properties and sentenced them to a US$800 fine each. He ordered that they immediately move out of their homes and vacate their farms by Wednesday evening.

The farmers filed an urgent appeal in the High Court in Harare Wednesday evening, a move that under court procedures means the ruling of the lower court is automatically put on hold, allowing the farmers to remain on their properties until conclusion of their appeal against both conviction and sentencing.

But Zuze on Thursday issued warrants of arrest for the four farmers for failing to vacate their properties as he had ordered.

The mainly white CFU last has criticised the power-sharing government between President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai for failing to end chaos in the farming sector. – ZimOnline