Woman charged after allegedly calling Robert Mugabe a ‘goblin’

An American working for a Zimbabwean TV station has been arrested for insulting President Robert Mugabe and plotting to overthrow the government.

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe addresses people at an event before the closure of his party's 16th Annual Peoples Conference in Masvingo Source: AAP

Zimbabwean police have charged an American citizen with plotting to overthrow a constitutionally elected government, her lawyer says.

Martha O'Donovan, who works for Magamba TV, which describes itself as Zimbabwe's leading producer of political satire, had earlier been charged over a tweet that appeared to insult President Robert Mugabe.

In a statement to police, O'Donovan denied the allegations against her as "baseless and malicious".

O'Donovan was picked up in a dawn raid on her Harare home, Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights said in a statement on Friday.

Police raided her home with a search warrant requiring O'Donovan to give up her computers, mobile phones and other electronic devices.

Police accused the American of posting a message on Twitter last month that read, "We are being led by a selfish and sick man".

The police search warrant had shown that central to its investigation was a post on O'Donovan's Twitter feed referring to a "Goblin" whose wife and stepsons had imported a Rolls Royce, an apparent reference to 93-year-old Mugabe, though he was not named.