Police in Zimbabwe have arrested four men in connection with the murder of a white farmer.
Mr Terry Ford was tied up and shot to death outside his homestead in Norton, 40 kilometres west of Harare, early yesterday. "Four people have been arrested, and firearms which we suspect were used in the murder were recovered," assistant commissioner Mr Wayne Bvudzijena said today.
"We have not gone into that," he said when asked if the suspects were war veterans or land invaders settled on the victim's farm. The farming community said the attackers were suspected self-styled war veterans of the 1970s liberation struggle.
This was the first attack on a white farmer since President Mr Robert Mugabe beat off a challenge by Movement for Democratic Change leader Mr Morgan Tsvangirai last week in a presidential election marred by violence and charges of vote rigging.
Most Commercial Farmers Union members backed Mr Tsvangirai, who had promised to stop the illegal seizure of white-owned farms and to implement a negotiated programme to advance black land ownership.
Mr Ford was the 10th white farmer to be killed since landless blacks began with government sanction to seize white-owned farms two years ago.