Harare, September 01, 2011 - Zimbabwean police on Thursday arrested two journalists working for Associated Press for allegedly filming the Libyan embassy in Harare. Two plainclothes policemen arrested Farai Mugano, a cameraman for Associated Press and Gillian Gotora, a journalist working for the American news agency and accused them of filming the Libyan embassy without authority.

Gotora was released and Mugano was detained at the Libyan embassy. Eye witnesses who witnessed the arrest told Radio VOP that an embassy
official first gave chase to Mugano who was filming the embassy before the plainclothes policemen arrested the two journalists.
The police and the embassy officials accused the journalists of entering the Libyan territory without authority.
On Tuesday, the Zimbabwean government gave the Lybian ambassador, Taher El Magrahi to Zimbabwe 72 hours to leave the country after he
defected to the National Transitional Council last week.
Foreign Affairs Minister, Samuel Samuel Mumbengegwi told journalists at a press conference that El Magrahi had been asked to leave Harare
within three days.
The ZANU (PF) side of government accused the Libyan envoy of hoisting the North African state’s new flag before forcing him to later pull down the NTC’s flag.