Zimbabwe Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa has ordered Attorney General (AG) Sobuza Gula-Ndebele to drop charges of political violence against ruling Zanu-PF party supporters and state security agents, authoritative sources told ZimOnline on Monday.
Chinamasa issued the directive last month, telling Gula-Ndebele that he [Chinamasa] was acting on direct instruction from President Robert Mugabe and that there would be ”serious consequences” for the AG if he failed to comply.
But the sources said Gula-Ndebele had rejected Chinamasa’s directive, instructing prosecutors across the country to speed up work on all cases of political violence, including those involving security forces and Zanu-PF party supporters, committed during the 2000 and 2002 elections.
”Barring direct intervention by Mugabe [to stop prosecution] the AG’s office will soon be writing to the police to finalise investigations into some of the cases, while several cases that are ready for trial will be brought to court,” said a senior official at Gula-Ndebele’s office.
The official, who did not want his name published because he is not authorised to disclose such details to the press, said Gula-Ndebele wanted all cases of political violence committed during the two elections, both controversially won by Mugabe and Zanu-PF, concluded.
Gula-Ndebele — who has constitutional powers to independently determine what cases to prosecute — refused to discuss the matter when contacted by ZimOnline. ”No comment,” was all he would say before switching off his mobile phone.
Chinamasa also refused to discuss the matter, switching off his phone, but not before accusing ZimOnline of ”always wanting to write negative stories” about the government.
It was not possible to immediately establish from Mugabe’s spokesperson, George Charamba, whether the president had indeed directed Chinamasa to tell Gula-Ndebele to drop political violence charges against Zanu-PF supporters and members of the security forces.
A wave of politically motivated violence, assault, torture and murder of opposition supporters hit Zimbabwe during and after a general election in 2000 and a presidential poll in 2002.
The two violence-marred polls were the first in which Mugabe and Zanu-PF had ever faced a real danger of losing power to the hugely popular opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party.
Mugabe and his party won the elections but the MDC, Western countries and international observers refused to endorse the polls as democratic, accusing the government of using violence and outright fraud to achieve victory.
The Commonwealth suspended Zimbabwe from the club while the United States, the European Union, Switzerland, Australia and New Zealand imposed visa and financial sanctions on Mugabe and his top officials as punishment for stealing elections and for human rights violations.
But Mugabe and the Zanu-PF deny violating human rights or stealing elections.
According to sources, Chinamasa told Gula-Ndebele that if he were to prosecute large numbers of Zanu-PF supporters for political violence, then this would in a way confirm claims by the MDC and human rights groups of rampant violence and victimisation of the opposition.
The justice minister is also said to have expressed fears that prosecuting members of the army, police and secret service accused of political violence will in the end portray the state security forces as agents of the ruling party that are used to intimidate and harass the opposition.
Meanwhile, a magistrate’s court in the farming town of Rusape on Monday issued a warrant of arrest against Chinamasa after the justice minister failed to turn up at court to answer charges of trying to obstruct the course of justice in a case of political violence committed in the run-up to the last March’s general election.
Chinamasa is accused of having tried to influence state witnesses to withdraw from a case in which State Security Minister Didymus Mutasa and others were accused of having incited some youths to attack their political rivals.
Withdrawal of state witnesses would have weakened the case against Mutasa, who incidentally was later cleared of inciting political violence while his co-accused were put on trial.
The justice minister allegedly committed the offence sometime in December last year and in January this year. Chinamasa is being charged with five others who were present at court and were remanded to August 1. — ZimOnline