MONDAY, 4.30PM
The trial of former Zimbabwean president the Reverend Canaan Banana, 61, on charges of homosexual rape was postponed on Monday for six weeks to allow him to be represented by a top advocate.
The trial, which involves 11 counts of sodomy, attempted sodomy and indecent assault, was due to begin on Monday but Judge Feargus Blackie agreed in the Harare High Court to delay proceedings until September 22. Banana’s legal team announced earlier that it would be asking for a postponement so that it could engage Chris Andersen, one of the country’s most senior advocates, who served as a cabinet minister in both the Rhodesian and Zimbabwean governments, to represent the ex-president. Andersen is currently on holiday.
The charges arise from evidence given in the murder trial last year of Banana’s former aide de camp Japhta Dube, who said he shot and killed a police colleague who called him “Banana’s wife” after he had been subjected to three years of sexual abuse by Banana who was at the time Zimbabwe’s non-executive president.