OWN CORRESPONDENT, London | Tuesday 7.20pm
BRITISH gay activist Peter Thatchell was on Tuesday charged for threatening Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe during a private visit to London late last month, Scotland Yard said.
Tatchell (47) of the gay rights association OutRage! jumped in front of Mugabe’s limousine as he was leaving his hotel on October 30 and shouted, “President Mugabe, you are under arrest for torture. Torture is a crime under international law.”
He told Mugabe’s bodyguards to get the police to lock up their “boss.” Tatchell later explained that he wanted to expose the alleged torture of two Zimbabwean journalists as well as to denounce anti-gay remarks by Mugabe, who has said homosexuals are “lower than pigs or dogs.”
The encounter enraged Mugabe, who soon afterward claimed that Prime Minister Tony Blair’s cabinet of “gay gangsters” had orchestrated the incident. Both men were at the just-ended Commonwealth summit, and traded barbs, Mugabe calling Blair “stand-offish” and the British prime minister referring to unnamed leaders “from the eccentric end of the market.”
The British government however has made a formal expression of regret to Zimbabwe over the affair. Thatchell has said he will plead not guilty to any charges against him. — AFP