OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pretoria | Monday 8.40pm.
ROBERT MCBRIDE, the Foreign Affairs official who was suspended 13 months ago following his arrest in Mozambique on charges of gun-running and espionage, was reinstated in his job on Monday, the foreign ministry said.
McBride, who heads the ministry’s Asian desk in Pretoria, can return to work “as soon as possible,” foreign ministry spokesman Marco Boni said.
The lifting of his suspension follows three weeks after the Mozambican Supreme Court cleared McBride of all charges.
Following his arrest last year McBride spent six months in a Maputo jail while the Mozambican government investigated the charges against him.
The flamboyant diplomat, a member of the ruling African National Congress who narrowly escaped the gallows after carrying out a deadly bombing during the anti-apartheid struggle, claimed that he was investigating gun-running between the two countries when he was arrested. — AFP