ZIMBABWEAN PRIME minister Morgan Tsvangirai called off a cabinet meeting yesterday in the wake of a court’s decision on Wednesday to send Roy Bennett, one of his senior aides, back to jail ahead of his terrorism trial.
A former white farmer who joined Mr Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party after his land was expropriated during the early part of the state’s land reform programme, Mr Bennett will stand trial next Monday on charges of possession of weapons with intent to overthrow President Robert Mugabe’s former government.
He has denied any wrongdoing and claims the charges against him, which are based on a weapons find near his home, are trumped up.
Following the weapons find in 2006 he fled Zimbabwe for neighbouring South Africa, but he returned to his home country at the beginning of this year to take part in the transitional government formed by Mr Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party and the MDC.
Originally arrested on February 13th last, the day he was to become deputy agriculture minister in Zimbabwe’s transitional government, Mr Bennett has been out on bail since late March.
Despite facing serious charges, Mr Bennett has retained Mr Tsvangirai’s full backing, and his detention is said to have greatly angered the prime minister.
“The prime minister has suspended the council of ministers meeting and any government appointments until the Bennett issue is resolved,” an official in the prime minister’s office told local reporters. The MDC has indicated that his re-arrest ahead of his trial has seriously undermined the credibility of the country’s fragile transitional government as the party believes Zanu-PF is behind its member’s latest detention.
“Zanu-PF has invented yet another technicality to have him detained without trial on trumped-up charges of banditry and terrorism,” the party said in a statement.
Mr Bennett’s lawyer, Harrison Nkomo, said there was no good reason to detain his client because he had “religiously” complied with all the conditions set by the Supreme Court.