A Zimbabwe court on Friday sentenced the country’s registrar general to a two-month suspended jail term for defying a series of court orders to surrender ballot boxes used in disputed presidential elections held two years ago.
Tobaiwa Mudede was sentenced to two months in jail by Justice Yunus Omerjee, and fined Z$5-million (R3 690) for failing to obey court orders issued over the past two years.
However, the judge suspended the prison sentence for 10 days ”on condition that [Mudede] complies with the order of this honourable court”.
Mudede appeared on Friday to have capitulated to the court demands, with government lorries seen outside the High Court offloading ballot boxes from the 2002 polls. They are being stored at a room at the court.
Morgan Tsvangirai of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) is challenging President Robert Mugabe’s victory in presidential elections held in March 2002, which Tsvangirai lost by about 400 000 votes.
The opposition leader claims the vote was rigged, and his lawyers have been battling to have the ballot boxes and packets containing the papers delivered to the court so they can investigate them.
Mudede, whom the MDC accuses of being a Mugabe loyalist responsible for rigging three consecutive elections, denies he was deliberately defying the court orders and said his office did not have the resources to comply. — Sapa-DPA