Zimbabwe’s high court judge said on thursday that the state’s case against a U.S. citizen charged with trying to subvert President Robert Mugabe’s government lacked facts and ordered that she be granted bail.
Martha O‘Donovan has been in prison since Saturday, a day after she was arrested on accusations of insulting Mugabe in a Twitter post. Police later leveled the more serious charge of subversion, which carries a possible 20-year jail term.
The High Court Judge Clement Phiri said there was a “patent absence of facts” in the state’s case while granting her bail Reuters reports.
“The applicant has demonstrated that she should be granted bail. It is my finding that it is in the interests of justice that the applicant be given bail,” he added.
O‘Donovan was ordered her to deposit $1,000 with the court, surrender her passport and report to the criminal investigations department twice a week as part of her bail conditions.
Her lawyer Obey Shava said O‘Donovan would be released on Friday after completing administrative procedures.
Her case centers on a Twitter post she wrote in October calling Mugabe a “selfish and sick man”.
