Legal wrangling over Zimbabwe's Daily News, a harsh critic of the government of President Robert Mugabe, continued yesterday as four directors facing contempt of court charges were released on bail after spending two nights in police custody.

A magistrate's court, quashing a defense bid to have the charges against them dropped, ordered the four to return to court on November 13.

They were arrested Monday after the newspaper, the southern African country's most popular daily, returned to the newsstands on Saturday - six weeks after police closed it down for operating without a licence - following a ruling in its favour by the Administrative Court.

That court found that a government-appointed media commission had wrongly denied the paper a licence last month, and ordered the paper to be licensed by November 30.

Defense lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa argued yesterday that the Administrative Court had effectively paved the way for the reappearance of the Daily News, accused by Mugabe's ruling party of being a mouthpiece of the political opposition.

"In effect the ANZ (Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe, the paper's parent company) ... was registered by the Administrative Court.

What is left is the issuing of a registration certificate by a properly constituted body," Mtetwa said.

Publisher Samuel Nkomo vowed moments after his release that the paper, whose workers have had frequent brushes with the authorities since it was launched in 1999, would soon return to the streets.

"We are supposed to be publishing, and I maintain that it is our duty, it's our business to publish, and whoever is not happy is the one who should get an order for us to stop publishing," Nkomo told reporters outside the courtroom.

Nkomo and his co-directors each paid 50 000 Zimbabwe dollars' bail.

Magistrate Mishrod Guvamombe set a return date of November 13 to allow himself time to study a ruling on a similar matter involving another of the paper's directors who was freed by the High Court in Zimbabwe's second city Bulawayo on Monday.

Mtetwa had pointed to the Bulawayo court's finding that no grounds existed to place Washington Sansole, who had been arrested Saturday, on remand.

She said the facts surrounding Sansole's case were similar, and argued against applying the law selectively for the others.

"It will clearly be discriminatory. The constitution provides against selective application of the law," Mtetwa said.

The four - Nkomo, Rachel Kupara, Brian Mutsau and Stuart Mattinson - spent two nights in police cells and were denied access to their lawyers until late Tuesday.

"Clearly the intention is to lock up the accused not because they committed any offence but (because) someone has to be punished," Mtetwa said.

"There is nothing that justifies the accused having been placed in custody for two nights".

Nkomo told reporters outside the courtroom that the detention had merely been a way to "torture" them.

Elizabeth Mwatse-Simowah argued on behalf of the state that the four acted in contempt when they proceeded to publish Saturday against an earlier Supreme Court ruling that they should first get registered.

After Mugabe's disputed re-election victory in March 2002, the government introduced tough media laws, which require all newspapers and journalists to be registered with the state-appointed Media and Information Commission (MIC).

The Daily News had refused to register arguing that the law was unconstitutional and had been specifically designed to enable the government to shut it down.

Since it began publishing in 1999, many of the paper's reporters and editors have been arrested, and its offices and printing presses have been bombed.

Nkomo would not commit himself to a date for the resumption of publication, saying: "We are just coming from prison. We'll see what we can do". – Sapa-AFP.