Harare/Johannesburg - Police in Zimbabwe defied a High Court order to have a human rights campaigner and eight activists released to a clinic when they took them to a prison, a lawyer for the activists said Thursday.

Jestina Mukoko and the activists were charged on Wednesday with recruiting or trying to recruit people to plot the overthrow President Robert Mugabe's government.

High Court Judge Yunus Omarjee late Wednesday ordered the release of Mukoko, her eight co-accused, and 23 other activists because their detention was illegal. Mukoko and the activists were to be taken from prison to a medical clinic for treatment amid allegations of torture.

But by Thursday afternoon, the activists had not been released and a visit to the clinic where they were supposed to be, proved that they were not there.

"We only heard it on radio that they are supposed to be here. But they are yet to come," an official at the Avenues Clinic in the capital Harare said.

Alec Muchadehama one of the activists' lawyers, said she had learnt that Mukoko and her eight colleagues, had been taken to an undisclosed location under armed police guard on Thursday morning.

"I am informed that they were taken to Chikurubi Maximum Prison. I am really shocked by the police action and I am trying to get to the bottom of the matter," Muchadehama said.

"Police so far have not been cooperative but I am told they were driven away from under a heavy police guard in the morning."

Mukoko and other activists had been held in police cells around the capital Harare.

The former newscaster who headed the Zimbabwe Peace Project, was picked up at gunpoint in Harare on December 3. If convicted she faces a capital punishment as they are being accused of recruiting for banditry to topple Mugabe.

Beatrice Mtetwa, another of the activists' lawyers, told journalists Thursday that Mukoko and the eight activists had been tortured.

Mukoko's appearance in court Wednesday came three weeks after she was abducted from her home. Police had denied holding Mukoko while her whereabouts were unknown. (dpa)