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CIO's Ncube plot exposed
Loughty Dube, Zimbabwe Independent
August 24, 2007

http://allafrica.com/stories/200708250045.html

THE Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO)'s plot to silence Bulawayo Archbishop Pius Ncube by linking him to a sex scandal is in disarray as details of the plot have started leaking, exposing the intelligence service's role.

It has now been established that the CIO is behind the sting operation which exposed the Archbishop's alleged affair.

The disclosures of the CIO involvement in the saga comes at a time when questions are being raised over whether Ernest Tekere - a former senior CIO officer who was identified as the private investigator in Ncube's scandal - had the capacity to conduct such an evidently large project on his own.

According to information from former minister Enos Nkala, Tekere featured in massacres of civilians by government forces in Matabeleland and Midlands in the 1980s. He apparently worked with his former employers in the Ncube sting operation.

Sources said the CIO worked closely with state-media journalists to target Ncube for allegedly sleeping with different women when he is sworn to celibacy. It is said the CIO set up the sting over a period of two years and poured a lot of money and resources into ensuring Ncube was exposed. After the plot, a campaign of publicity was then launched to "expose, shame and silence" the cleric, it is said. State media journalists were arranged to publicise the project in its various phases.

Video footage - which allegedly shows Ncube in explicit sexual acts - and photographs were produced and distributed to selected state media journalists. Some of the footage has also been given to online publications for maximum publicity.

According to reliable sources, the first phase of the plot is the $20 billion adultery case filed by Onesimus Sibanda, who is suing Ncube over an alleged adulterous affair with his wife Rosemary.

The first phase however did not achieve the desired results as Zimbabweans rallied behind Archbishop Ncube and dismissed the whole episode as a plot by the government to silence the vocal government critic.

The manner the first phase was executed in and the way it was publicised by the state media has also given credence to the view that it was a state hatchet job.

However, the Independent will reveal that the CIO and the state media have not given up on Archbishop Ncube but are now working towards unleashing more exposés on the cleric to be done in the remaining two phases.

The second phase of the three-phase operation will entail another lawsuit to be filed by Sibanda where this time he is claiming that his wife Rosemary infected him with the HIV virus which she acquired from Ncube.

Two weeks ago state media editors, journalists, a lawyer and state security agents met at a Bulawayo hotel to map out strategies on how they will proceed with the smear campaign on the vocal cleric.

However, a few days after the meeting state newsrooms were awash with talk about the plot and a witch-hunt has already been instituted to find out who leaked the information among those present at the planning meeting at the hotel.

The Chronicle recently carried a story where it said it will "break" stories involving more lawsuits from Sibanda and other people over Ncube's adulterous relationships.

The third phase of the planned smear campaign will be a disclosure through a story that Archbishop Ncube fathered two children with a married woman from Esigodini in Matabeleland South.

The sources close to CIO operations however say a sticking point that is delaying the planned exposé of Ncube is on modalities of convincing the husband of the Esigodini woman to agree that the children are not his.

Subsequent meetings have been held between the state editors, journalists and state security agents to fine-tune details of the case before the stories are published.

The sources also revealed how the alleged footage involving Ncube was acquired and doctored by the state security agents.

The sources said state security agents tampered with telephone lines to Ncube's house at St Mary's Cathedral and later sent fake technicians who later said the fault was in cables in Archbishop Ncube's bedroom.

After gaining access to his residence the CIO operatives then installed the surveillance cameras.

Sources close to the plot also indicated that the CIO paid nurses at the Catholic-owned Mater Dei hospital to take blood samples of Archbishop Ncube when he was admitted there while suffering from a mild stroke.

The sources claim that DNA tests were performed on Ncube's blood which they say will prove that he fathered the children in Esigodini.

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