Zimbabwean Police have arrested three journalists after they implicated a senior police officer in the killing of dozens of elephants by poachers, police said on Tuesday.
Mabasa Sasa an Editor alongside Brian Chitemba and Tinashe Farawo reporters from the state-run weekly Sunday Mail were arrested on Monday, their lawyer James Muzangaza said.
Muzangaza said he was trying to secure his clients’ prompt release.
“The recent case of peddling falsehoods by the overzealous editor and his two reporters of the Sunday Mail has left the police service baffled,” police spokeswoman Charity Charamba said.
The Sunday Mail reported that an assistant police commissioner, wildlife rangers and an Asian businessman with ties to smuggling rings were involved in the recent poisoning of about 60 elephants with cyanide in Hwange, the country’s biggest national park.
The development has attracted concern from human rights activists who opined that journalists were frequently arrested to gag criticism of President Robert Mugabe’s regime.
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