AFP, Harare | Friday
FOUR opposition officials have been arrested after police in Zimbabwe raided three offices of the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in search of weapons.
One of several lawyers representing the MDC, Brian Kagoro said “they (the police) have arrested and detained” four officials after the early morning raid found nothing at the three offices.
The search comes two days after unknown assailants threw a hand grenade which exploded at the MDC headquarters in the capital.
Several plainclothes officers and armed riot police raided three MDC offices in and around the capital, the head office, the party’s technical support centre in a high-rise building and another office in the middle-class suburb of St Martins.
A search warrant issued for the operation read: “There are reasonable grounds for believing that there is in the possession or under the control of … arms of war – grenades, pistols, rifles, tearsmoke… which…. may afford evidence of the commission or suspected commission of an offence.”
No arrests have been made yet.
On Wednesday, police searched the house of an MDC security officer Join Nkhatazo and confiscated documents, according to the opposition party administrator David Chimhini.
“It’s a continuation of the harassment, intimidation, terror tactics,” Chiminhi said.
“You get attacked and you become the suspect,” quipped Chimhini.
The MDC took nearly half of all contested seats in parliamentary elections in June, following months of violence and intimidation directed mainly at opposition supporters.