TUESDAY, 4.00PM
The trial of former Zimbabwean president Canaan Banana on charges of sodomy and indecent assault was adjourned on Tuesday while the judge considers a defence application for the case to be thrown out of court.
Banana faces trial on 11 counts of sodomy, attempted sodomy and indecent assault involving seven aides, a cook, a gardener and a bodyguard.
At the start of the trial on Monday Banana’s lawyers applied for the charges to be dropped on the grounds that pre-trial publicity had prejudiced his right to a fair hearing. Some of that publicity includes graphic accounts of how the former president allegedly forced a young aide to submit to oral and anal sex against his will.
The judge set no date for a resumption of the trial.
The former president, who is married and has four children, has publicly denied the charges against him and says he is not homosexual.