Zimbabwean police say opposition leaders Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara and more than 40 other activists arrested last week are not allowed to leave the country until their case is finalised in court, a newspaper reported Monday.
Mutambara, who leads a breakaway faction of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) was arrested at Harare International Airport on Saturday as he tried to leave the country to visit his wife in South Africa.
On the same day police stopped two injured MDC activists from flying out of the country on board a medical air rescue service plane. They were due to receive treatment in South Africa for injuries sustained in police custody following their arrest on March 11 while trying to attend a prayer rally in Harare.
On Sunday MDC member of Parliament and national spokesperson Nelson Chamisa was severely assaulted by suspected state agents as he was about to board a flight for Belgium on parliamentary business. He had to be rushed to hospital.
Police spokesperson Wayne Bvudzijena told Monday’s edition of the state-controlled Herald that Mutambara should be honourable and not leave Zimbabwe.
”We were surprised to see him [Mutambara] wanting to go out of the country before he has appeared before the courts, Bvudzijena was quoted as saying.
”People should be honourable and adhere to what would have been agreed upon. Why would one want to go out of the country before he has appeared in court as per the agreement with their lawyers?”
Defence lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa said Mutambara’s arrest and detention on Saturday was a ”clear contemptuous, arrogant and malicious” defiance of an earlier High Court ruling that ordered the release of the opposition activists from police custody.
Slain activist buried by police?
The authorities in Zimbabwe have denied reports that secret police this weekend buried an opposition activist shot dead by police in Harare.
The Herald said Gift Tandare had been buried peacefully at his rural home in Mount Darwin in northern Zimbabwe on Sunday.
The paper quoted the father of the slain activist who said media reports claiming his son’s body had been seized by Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) operatives from a Harare funeral parlour were unfounded.
Tandare, a member of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), was shot dead by police in Highfield township on March 11, when skirmishes broke out following the arrest of MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai and a number of party officials.
The party had declared Tandare a national hero and had wanted to give him a big funeral in Harare.
There were reports this weekend that the CIO had secretly buried Tandare’s body because of fears of rioting at his burial.
But the Herald said Tandare had been buried in Mount Darwin after payment of cattle to the local chief. A ruling party legislator helped meet funeral expenses and provided a suit for burial, the paper claimed.
An MDC spokesperson maintained that state agents had kidnapped Tandare’s body.
”The CIO kidnapped the body of the late Tandare without the consent of his wife and so you should go and ask them [the CIO], not us,” William Bango told the Herald. – Sapa-AFP, Sapa-DPA