State media published photographs on Tuesday said to have been taken by a camera hidden in the bedroom of Zimbabwean Roman Catholic Archbishop Pius Ncube, claiming they show the outspoken government critic undressing along with a woman named in an adultery case.
Ncube’s lawyer has called a civil adultery case filed on Monday against Ncube an ”orchestrated attempt” to embarrass him.
The lawyer added Ncube would deny the allegations in court when the case begins at an unspecified date. The archbishop declined to answer questions about his private life in a state television interview, but spoke of the importance of forgiveness.
Ncube has repeatedly accused President Robert Mugabe of human rights violations and called for him to step down. The cleric has also urged Zimbabweans to take to the streets to demonstrate against the government amid the nation’s worst economic crisis since independence.
On Monday court officials were accompanied by a state television crew when they delivered documents to Ncube at his office at St Mary’s Cathedral in Bulawayo, alleging he was involved in a two-year affair with a secretary whose husband was demanding damages in a civil suit.
On Tuesday a photograph in the state Herald depicted Ncube sitting on a bed taking off his shirt, obscuring a woman seated behind him.
The Herald said many explicit pictures were taken by a private investigator hired by the man who filed the suit. It said one of the photos showed Ncube (61) and the man’s wife (44), a secretary at his cathedral, naked.
The archbishop was also photographed ”in the act with several other women in the supposedly holy bedroom”, the Herald said.
State radio said the government-controlled Bulawayo Chronicle newspaper printed other photographs, along with a front-page warning they were not suitable for people under 18.
Democracy activist David Coltart, a Bulawayo attorney and long-time friend of Ncube, said the only incriminating photographs were blurred and did not conclusively show the archbishop.
Onesimus Sibanda, the husband who filed suit, is a railroad technician. He was unlikely to have been able mount an elaborate ”sting operation” and litigation alone, Coltart said.
State intelligence agents used a hidden camera in the treason case against Movement for Democratic Change leader Morgan Tsvangirai.
Tsvangirai was acquitted in 2004 after more than a year of court hearings.
State television on Tuesday repeated footage first shown Monday of Ncube speaking to journalists at his St Mary’s Cathedral on Monday in which he spoke of forgiveness.
”We all have weaknesses. That’s why when we pray; we always ask God for forgiveness,” he said.
He went on: ”I will not answer this question concerning my private life. Yes, I did take a vow. There are a whole lot of other circumstances that take place in a person’s life. I would not be able to answer those items.”
The Vatican Embassy in Harare refused to comment on Tuesday and asked a state television crew to submit questions in writing. No immediate comment was available from the Catholic Bishops’ Conference.
Court officials said on Monday that Sibanda was demanding Z$20-billion (about US$160 000 at the dominant black-market exchange rate) in damages.
At the legal official exchange rate the damages demanded — one of the highest demands in the nation’s legal history — would exceed US$1,3-million.
State television on Monday showed Rosemary Sibanda saying she was separated from her husband when she began the alleged affair with Ncube two years ago and she hoped he would help pay her rent and buy food.
Mugabe himself fathered two children with his secretary before his first wife died. He married Grace Marufu in 1996, and said later his first wife, Ghanaian-born Sally Hayfron, condoned his affair with Marufu because she knew she was barren.
Earlier this month, Mugabe urged his ruling party militants to disregard church leaders who have called for his forced ouster and accused Ncube and other church leaders of ”peddling falsehoods about Zimbabwe’s governance”.
”Where is the godliness? Don’t listen to what they say … One cannot tell the difference between a bishop and a layman anymore. Some of them have sworn to celibacy but they sleep around,” Mugabe told supporters on July 7. — Sapa-AP