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Legal
Monitor - Issue - 77
Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR)
January 24, 2011
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Ministers
in court for torture
The high profile trial of four Cabinet ministers
and several top ranking State security agents accused of authorising
the abduction and torture of rights and political activists in 2008
starts today at the High Court.
Pieta Kaseke, Manuel Chinanzvavana and Gandhi Mudzingwa,
now an official in the coalition government, were among over a dozen
activists systematically rounded up by State security agents and
held incommunicado at various locations between October and December
2008. Together with over a dozen other activists, the three were
charged
President Mugabe
and his security sector allies were consolidating their power during
the period of the abductions following the violent
and disputed June 2008 presidential election runoff boycotted by
first round winner, Morgan Tsvangirai.
The abductees now want those officials responsible
for their ordeal to pay. They are suing the ministers and State
security agents in a case that will be heard by Justice Tedious
Karwi today. Kaseke, Chinanzvavana and Mudzingwa are demanding $1.2
million each.
The four ministers are Presidential Affairs Minister
Didymus Mutasa, who held the State Security portfolio at the time
of the abductions, Justice and Legal Affairs Minister Patrick Chinamasa,
co-Home Affairs Ministers Kembo Mohadi and Giles Mutsekwa. Mutsekwa
has since been moved to the National Housing portfolio.
Happyton Bonyongwe, the Director-General of the
Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO), Police Commissioner-General
Augustine Chihuri and Paradzai Zimondi, the Commissioner of Prisons
are being sued in the same case together with seven top security
agents. The security agents are Chief Superintendent Peter Magwenzi,
Chief Superintendent Chrispen Makedenge, Senior Assistant Commissioner
Nyathi, Asher Walter Tapfumaneyi, Superintendent Joel Shasha Tenderere,
Superintendent Regis Takaitei and Detective Chief Inspector Mpofu.
Apart from Kaseke, Chinanzvavana and Mudzingwa,
the other abductees have filed similar lawsuits before the courts
which are yet to be heard. The abductees say they were seriously
injured during the days they were held incommunicado because of
various torture methods used on them. These included blindfolding,
repeated beatings and being forced to sleep in wet conditions.
The enforced disappearances, which became the State's
preferred tool against perceived political rivals during the 2008
tumult, were outlawed by the United Nations General Assembly Resolution
47/133 of 18 December 1992.
Lawyers say
the torture was unlawful, inhumane, degrading and violated Section
15 of the Constitution
and other regional and international human rights instruments such
as Article 5 of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, Article 1 of the Convention Against
Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment,
Article 5 of the African Charter
on Human and People's Rights and Article 7 of the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which outlaw torture.
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