A white Zimbabwean security expert who has been in police cells since March for allegedly plotting to overthrow President Robert Mugabe’s government has been denied bail for a third time, reports said on Thursday.
Michael Hitschmann was arrested along with four officials from the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and four police officers after detectives found what they said was a cache of arms at his house in the eastern city of Mutare.
The police accused Hitschmann — who turned out to be a registered arms dealer — and the rest of the group of planning acts of sabotage, including plotting to spread oil on a Mutare road so that Mugabe’s fleet of cars would skid when he visited the city for his birthday celebrations.
The charges against the other eight suspects have now all been dropped, but Hitschmann is still in cells in the border city.
According to the state-controlled Herald newspaper, Hitschmann last week applied for bail again from the High Court, citing the failure of the prosecution to try him as promised in June.
But Justice Joseph Musakwa dismissed the bid.
”I am not satisfied that the postponement of the trial is a new factor that warrants Hitschmann’s admission to bail,” said the judge.
State media alleges that Hitschmann is an ex-Rhodesian soldier.
But locals insist that he never fought on the side of the white minority government during Zimbabwe’s war for independence because he had been taken out of the country by his parents who opposed the war on religious grounds. — Sapa-dpa