A US federal magistrate in New York has recommended that Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe’s ruling party pay $73-million in compensation for several cases of political killings and torture, one of the victims said on Tuesday.
US Magistrate James Francis said in the 32-page finding that Mugabe’s Zanu-PF should pay $20-million in compensatory damages and $53-million in punitive damages, one of the beneficiaries, Elliot Pfebve told AFP in Harare.
Relatives of three Zimbabweans who were killed and a political opponent who claims she was beaten before Zimbabwe’s parliamentary elections in 2000 sued Mugabe in a US District Court under the 212-year-old Alien Tort Claims Act.
The law allows nationals of other countries to file civil suits in US courts for injuries suffered in violation of international law, although it is rare to collect judgments in such cases.
”It’s not so much so for the money, but morally that ruling gives hope for Zimbabwe, that after all the international community is aware of what is happening in Zimbabwe,” Pfebve said.
?After all, if the laws of Zimbabwe cannot protect its citizens, there are laws, like the law in the US, that people can use to realise justice,” he said.
US federal judge Victor Marrero must review the recommendation, which he can accept or alter. He can also set out how Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF) would pay the damages.
Property or other assets held by Mugabe and other party officials in the United States could be seized. The plaintiffs could also turn to courts in other countries to ask that they also seize assets to comply with the ruling.
No Zimbabwean official contested the suit, and the government in Harare at one point denied the case’s existence. Several Zimbabwean journalists have been charged with criminal defamation for reporting on the lawsuit. – Sapa-AFP