A top aide to Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai said yesterday he would expose “lies, deceit and theft” in Zimbabwe after he is sworn in as deputy agriculture minister.
Roy Bennett, a 53-year-old white former farmer, was acquitted on Monday on charges of plotting to overthrow President Robert Mugabe that had already been discredited by another court.
“When you are dealing with people who hide in dark corners, who kill people and murder and maim and rule by absolute fear ... the biggest thing they fear is the shining light in those dark corners and they fear truth and honesty,” Bennett told South Africa’s Radio 702. “So my positioning as deputy minister of agriculture will open a can of worms because I would be able to expose a lot of the lies, deceit and theft that is taking place in Zimbabwe.”
Bennett, the treasurer-general of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), had been accused of buying £3,000 worth of arms in 2006 to carry out acts of insurgency, sabotage, banditry or terrorism in a plot to topple Mugabe.
Bennett’s supporters, including Tsvangirai, the prime minister and MDC leader, maintained the charges were baseless and aimed at undermining the coalition.
Tsvangirai’s pick for deputy agriculture minister in the fragile year-old unity government, Bennett was arrested in February last year shortly before he was to be sworn in.
After his acquittal, Tsvangirai’s MDC called for Bennett to take office, with his trial one of the issues threatening the unity government.
Bennett said there had been progress in the work of the unity government, with media, constitutional and electoral commissions in place.
He said he had expected the trial to go on indefinitely and his acquittal was a sign that there was pressure on Mugabe.
“I think there is a lot of pressure and there are a lots of things happening in Zimbabwe and continue to happen on a daily basis that one would never have expected, my acquittal yesterday for example,” Bennett said.
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