A Zimbabwe court ruled Friday that opposition leader Jameson Timba and 34 people in prison since their arrest at his home more than five months ago were guilty of unlawful gathering.
Timba, an interim leader of the Citizens' Coalition for Change (CCC), was arrested on June 16 with nearly 80 other people in a case criticised as being part of a crackdown on political dissent.
He and around 65 others from the original group were acquitted of a charge of disorderly conduct in September.
On the outstanding charge of participating in an unlawful gathering with intent to commit public violence, Magistrate Collet Ncube found Timba and 34 others guilty.
"This court is of the view that this gathering could have caused a breach of peace," Ncube said. "It is for that reason that police officers were alerted to maintain peace."
Await sentencing
Timba and the others who were found guilty await sentencing.
The judge said those who were acquitted were found to have not been in the house but near it. They are expected to be released from jail.
Timba and the others were among the first of around 160 opposition figures and activists to be rounded up ahead of a July summit of the 16-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC) in Harare.
Amnesty International and other groups said the arrests were politically motivated and part of a crackdown as President Emmerson Mnangagwa took over the one-year SADC chairmanship.
Many of those arrested in the round-up have since been released.
Mnangagwa's ZANU-PF party has been in power since independence in 1980 and is accused of stifling dissent.
