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Body of whistle blowing ZEC official found
Lance Guma, SW Radio Africa
October 20, 2008

http://www.swradioafrica.com/news201008/whistleblower201008.htm

The body of a senior Zimbabwe Election Commission official, who disappeared in June this year, turned up at a hospital mortuary in Norton on Thursday last week. According to the Zimbabwe Times website the body of Ignatius Mushangwe, the ZEC director of training and development, was found murdered and his partially burnt body dumped in the bush. Mushangwe courted the ire of Mugabe's regime by leaking information on how the government had printed 9 million ballot papers when there was less than 6 million registered voters. He also exposed how ZEC ordered 600 000 postal ballots to be used by just a few thousand police and soldiers. The website says it was the police who found the body and took it to the mortuary. Preliminary post mortem results show that he was strangled before his body was set on fire. The Zimbabwe Times said Mushangwe's relatives, including his wife, arrived at the mortuary Friday to identify the body. The discovery of the charred body in a public place is the talk of the whole Norton town, with residents said to be shocked at the extent of his injuries.

Soon after Morgan Tsvangirai defeated Mugabe in the March 29 harmonized election the regime went on a campaign to harass, beat and torture election officials claiming they helped the opposition win by fiddling with the votes. MDC official Morgan Komichi told the Zimbabwe Times that during a Political Parties Liaison Committee meeting, Mushangwe 'stood his ground in saying that ballot papers should only be issued to police details on duty and not to all and sundry. That was the last time we saw and heard of the man.' A close relative of Mushangwe confirmed the sequence of events telling reporters; 'What I know is that he went missing after attending a multi-party liaison meeting on the 10th of June. That day he was supposed to travel to Masvingo to see his brother who was not feeling well. So, when he did not turn up home we thought he had gone.' Police spokesman Oliver Mandipaka at the time is said to have complained about Mushangwe. The police then claimed they were looking for him on allegations of 'failing to distribute postal ballots to the collections centre' and 'destroying spoilt ballot papers without authority.' Immediately after these threats Mushangwe disappeared. Mandipaka has refused to comment on the matter.

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