A Zimbabwe court on Wednesday ordered ministerial nominee Roy Bennett, a close aide to Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, back to jail to face terrorism charges next week.
Magistrate Lucy Mungwari announced Bennett’s trial will start on Monday in the high court of the eastern town of Mutare and told the court: “The accused person shall be committed to prison.”
The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) treasurer, a white coffee grower whose property was expropriated under the country’s controversial land reform laws, was Tsvangirai’s pick as deputy agriculture minister.
But Bennett, implicated in an alleged 2006 attempt to assassinate Zimbabwe’s long serving President Robert Mugabe, was arrested just an hour before Mugabe swore in a unity government on Feb. 13.
He is accused of possessing arms for the purposes of banditry, terrorism and inciting acts of insurgency.
The case became a symbol of the challenges facing the new partnership of Tsvangirai with long-time rival Mugabe after disputed polls pushed the country into deeper economic and political chaos.
The MDC on Wednesday accused Mugabe’s ZANU-PF of being behind Bennett’s indictment and detention, saying the court order was “yet another serious attack on the credibility of the inclusive government.”
“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.
“The banditry charges are trumped-up and they poison the letter and spirit of the inclusive government” and the unity deal, it added.
The refusal by Mugabe to swear in Bennett as deputy minister is still one of the unresolved issues stalling the work of the power-sharing government.
Last month state media quoted Mugabe as telling a EU delegation on a landmark visit that the only issue that could be regarded as outstanding for the unity government was Bennett’s swearing-in.
“We have not taken the post away from MDC-T [Tsvangirai]. We have simply said if he is cleared [by the courts] he will be appointed the next day but if he is not, tough luck,” the Herald newspaper reported Mugabe as saying.
Bennett’s release on bail was ordered by the Supreme Court in March after weeks of legal wrangling following his arrest shortly after his return from neighboring South Africa.
He had fled to South Africa in 2006 to escape arrest after being implicated in the alleged assassination plot.
However, his other co-accused, including the new co-minister for home affairs Giles Mutsekwa, were cleared by the courts which discredited the alleged plot.
“They are alleging that he was the financier in the purchase of firearms,” his lawyer Trust Manda said adding that the lawyers were preparing a bid to have him released on bail.
“They are also alleging he kept arms of war to topple the government but he denies all the charges,” he said.
Bennett’s farm was seized in 2003 under Mugabe’s land reforms which targeted white-owned farms. The following year he was jailed for eight months for assault after he punched Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa in parliament during a debate on the land reforms.
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