Police in Zimbabwe have arrested a 65-year-old retired white judge who ordered the detention of a radical Zimbabwean cabinet minister earlier this year and had him arrested.
Adrienne Blackie, the wife of former high court judge Fergus Blackie, confirmed on Friday that her husband had been arrested earlier in the day. She said she did not know where he was being held.
Friends of the Blackie family said police picked up the former judge in his home in central Harare at 4am on Friday morning.
No comment was immediately available from the Zimbabwean police.
In July this year, Zimbabwe’s Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa threatened Blackie with legal action after he ordered the minister’s arrest.
On Friday, pro-government Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku also issued instructions to commence further criminal investigations against Blackie, the daily, state-run Herald reported.
Chidyausiku allegedly ordered police commissioner Augustine Chihuriover to investigate his conduct in a recent case involving a white woman convicted of stealing from her employer.
Chidyausiku reportedly accused Blackie of quashing the white woman’s conviction and of failing to consult with the black judge who sat with him on the case.
Although Blackie has been a frequent target of state controlled media, it is the first time in Zimbabwean history that a judge has been arrested.
Blackie took early retirement in July, five years before he was due to step down, shortly after he ordered the arrest of Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa for contempt of court.
The charges against Chinamasa were brought forward by the country’s judiciary after he denounced a ruling by a high court judge of Asian descent.
Chinamasa, who did not appear in court to answer the charges, said Blackie’s ruling was ”a hostile parting shot against the executive which should not be tolerated”.
Chinamasa was not arrested.
Blackie is the seventh judge in 15 months to step down from the bench after issuing rulings that have embarrassed Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe’s regime.
Judge George Smith is the last white judge left.
The first to go was internationally respected Former Chief Justice Anthony Gubbay, forced to resign by the regime and threatened with violence by Mugabe’s ruling party militiamen. The government accused Gubbay of being ”anti-government” because his court had declared Mugabe’s seizures of white-owned farms illegal. The orders were ignored.
Since then, Mugabe has appointed other pro-government judges to the supreme court and left only one independent justice on the bench of five.
The International Bar Association, made up of former chief justices and leading advocates, has accused Mugabe of ”packing the court” with sympathisers to ensure favourable decisions.
Blackie served as a lawyer in the attorney-general’s department of the white-minority Rhodesian government. In 1974 he was elected as an MP for the then ruling Rhodesian Front of former prime minister Ian Smith.
In 1995 a government minister was accused him of running a ”kangaroo court” after he held a night sitting in a police station to demand the release of white farmers held for alleged illegal possession of weapons.
The government had an international court of inquiry convened into allegations of misconduct and he was cleared. – Sapa