State withdraws charges against 'fake news' accused
Mpho Mokwape | Tuesday August 30, 2022 18:28
The trio that was facing charges for ‘fake news’ regarding the COVID-19 were today set free by the prosecution with liberty to reinstate the charges.
The prosecution did not give any reasons as to why the charges have been dropped after being deemed serious and damaging to public confidence.
“The accused persons had been previously excused from attending court and that is the reason they are not here today. We have taken the resolution to seek for a withdrawal of all the charges with liberty to reinstate later,” said State prosecutor.
Meanwhile, the accused persons were facing charges, the first two being ‘publishing statements with intention to deceive persons about the COVID-19 infection’. The last two charges were the ‘use of offensive electronic communication’.
They were arrested in April 2020 following what the police said they had apparently established that they are administrators of a Facebook page called ‘Botswana Trending News’ which was alleged to have published ‘fake news’ pertaining to President Mokgweetsi Masisi and the COVID-19 world pandemic.