Zimbabwe: Zanu Pf Officials to Be Questioned in Torture Trial
24th August 2010

By Alex Bell

 

Top ZANU PF officials are set to face questioning in the High Court next week, in connection with the torture of a Norton man in 2008.

 

Four Cabinet ministers and a number of service chiefs will face the court on allegations of torture, unlawful detention and deprivation of liberty.

 

Mapfumo Garutsa was abducted in November 2008 and held incommunicado for 22 days, on claims that he committed acts of terrorism and banditry. His captors accused him of bombing two bridges, police stations, and undergoing training in Botswana.

 

Garutsa was eventually released into police custody in December 2008 and has said he was subjected to serious torture and starvation during his 22 day ordeal. He says he was repeatedly assaulted and denied food, and he is now demanding close to 0,000 from the top government officials. The abductee's lawyer, Alec Muchadehama, told SW Radio Africa on Tuesday that the experience was "traumatic and is still haunting my client to date".

 

The ministers and service chiefs meanwhile have denied the allegations, saying Garutsa and other suspects were kept in 'safe houses' and 'volunteered' information. Garutsa is one of many who were abducted and tortured during the turbulent election period in 2008. Home Affairs co-Minister's Kembo Mohadi and Giles Mutsekwa, Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa and former State Security Minister Didymus Mutasa are now all set to be hauled before the High Court in connection with these claims.

 

Garutsa is also claiming damages from police Commissioner General Augustine Chihuri, Prisons Commissioner Paradzai Zimondi, Happyton Bonyongwe, Director General of the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO), Asher Walter Tapfumaneyi (Assistant Director of the CIO) and senior police officers, identified as Senior Assistant Commissioner Nyathi, Chief Superintendent Makedenge, Detective Chief Inspector Mpofu, Chief Superintendent Magwenzi, Superintendent Joel Shasha Tenderere and Superintendent Regis Takaitei.

 

Garutsa is demanding 000 in damages for unlawful assault and torture, 000 in damages for unlawful abduction and enforced disappearance, 000 for malicious persecution and 000 for unlawful detention.

 

The trial gets under way next Monday and comes as another year has passed without Zimbabwe signing the United Nations (UN) Convention against Torture. 147 nations have signed the Convention, including 47 African states. Of the African states that have signed 12 are from the 15 member Southern African Development Community (SADC). Angola, Tanzania and Zimbabwe are the only three countries in the region that have not signed.

 

In 2001 Parliament passed a motion calling for Zimbabwe to ratify the UN Convention, but Mugabe's government at the time unsurprisingly took no follow-up action. In May last year, in answer to a question from an MDC-T MP on why the Convention had not yet been ratified, former co-Minister of Home Affairs Giles Mutsekwa explained that his Ministry was still looking into the matter. He said the Ministry did not approve the use of torture to extract confessions, and pointed out that such confessions are not admissible in court. But this did not answer the question of why the government was failing to act on a Parliamentary resolution. No further action has been taken since.

 

Human rights lawyer Dewa Mavhinga, from the Crisis Zimbabwe Coalition, said on Tuesday that ZANU PF's traditional use of torture was standing in the way of ratifying the convention. He said the MDC needs to lead the way in ensuring such Conventions are signed and ratified, if there is to be any positive change.

 "If they are really committed to change, as they say they are, then this government must sign these conventions," Mavhinga said.  

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