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Tsvangirai judgement postponed: The background
Zim Online
July 29, 2004

http://www.zimonline.co.za/headdetail.asp?ID=111

HARARE - A judgement in the case against Morgan Tsvangirai, Zimbabwe's main opposition leader accused of "plotting" to kill President Robert Mugabe, was postponed indefinitely this week because the presiding judge had reached a verdict convicting Tsvangirai without consulting his two assessors, Zim Online has established.

Zimbabwe High Court Judge President Paddington Garwe, widely perceived as a Mugabe supporter, presided over the treason case with the aid of two assessors. He had been billed to pass judgment on the case, considered a make or break one for Tsvangirai, today (Thursday).

Authoritative judicial sources said the two assessors in the case, Misheck Nyandoro and Joseph Dangarembizi, had vehemently disagreed with the judge's guilty verdict and refused to rubber stamp his decision. This left Garwe with no option but to postpone the case.

Garwe's office had last month informed Tsvangirai's lawyers that judgment would be passed on 29 July. He later advised them that this would no longer be possible because the two assessors had requested records and transcripts of the case.

Tsvangirai faces the death penalty upon conviction. Garwe's decision means the opposition leader is now sitting on a knife edge and his future rests on whether both assessors will maintain their opposition to Garwe's verdict.

The sources said the assessors were enraged that Judge Garwe had reached a decision on a matter of fact without their input, contrary to the rules of court. All matters of fact must be decided by the majority of the court, the judge and his two assessors. Only the judge has the discretion to decide on matters of law.

In this case the verdict of the majority will decide on the matter of fact - did Tsvangirai indeed plot to kill President Mugabe?

If the majority answers the question in the affirmative, the judge will have the discretion to decide on questions of law, in particular the appropriate punishment to be imposed, the sources said.

Garwe has in the past handed down several decisions that controversially favoured the government. During the 2002 presidential election he dismissed an opposition application to extend the voting period despite evidence of long queues of stranded voters in urban centres who had not had a chance to cast their ballots because the government had reduced the number of polling stations in the opposition's urban strongholds.

Garwe is also being criticised for not having allocated judges to hear most of the opposition's 37 legal challenges of the seats won by Mugabe's ZANU PF party in the 2000 parliamentary elections. The challenges are now seen as academic because Zimbabwe's next parliamentary elections are only eight months away.

The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) went to court to challenge ZANU PF's victories in 37 of the 62 seats the ruling party won in the election, alleging that it had used violence in the process. The High Court only heard 14 of the challenges and the MDC won seven.

If Garwe's guilty verdict against Tsvangirai was upheld, observers said, this would probably end the MDC leader's political career as he would have no chances of succeeding in having it reversed by the Supreme Court which is seen as even more loyal to the Zimbabwe government.

The state based its case against Tsvangirai on a grainy and inaudible video supplied by Ari Ben Menashe, a Canadian based Israel born political consultant. A United States congressional committee report in the 1980s described Menashe as a "talented liar".

Tsvangirai insisted the grainy video tape was manipulated to implicate him. Ben Menashe agreed in court that he had been paid more than US$500 000 for his work for the Mugabe government but denied that he was specifically paid to frame Tsvangirai.

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