Guard tortured for Zapu links

Politics
MINES minister Obert Mpofu’s aides on Sunday allegedly severely beat up a security guard employed by the Zanu PF politburo member after accusing him of being a Zapu member.

MINES minister Obert Mpofu’s aides on Sunday allegedly severely beat up a security guard employed by the Zanu PF politburo member after accusing him of being a Zapu member.

NQOBANI NDLOVU

Lifasi Sibanda, who was guarding Mpofu’s house in Victoria Falls on Sunday, was allegedly first questioned about his Zapu links by the aides before he was taken to Mkhosana suburb where he was beaten.

Zapu president Dumiso Dabengwa and party officials in Victoria Falls confirmed the incident.

Mpofu, who is also the outgoing Zanu PF legislator for Umguza, denied allegations that such an incident took place.

“I don’t even know what you are talking about. You should talk to those aides for comment,” he said. But Dabengwa said: “It is typical of people that are prone to violence. It shows the calibre of the people that we are dealing with.

“Mpofu was supposed to fire Sibanda than to subject him to beatings for supporting Zapu.”

According to the Hwange Zapu chairman Fidres Ncube the security guard has since quit work fearing for his life.

Ncube said Sibanda had previously expressed fear for his life after the minister’s aides allegedly found that he supported Zapu.

“We now fear for the life of the security guard and other Zapu members,” he said.

Narrating the Sunday incident, Ncube said the aides arrived in the afternoon from a rally and started harassing Sibanda for supporting Zapu yet he was guarding a Zanu PF minister.

He said the aides were angered by the security guards’ unsatisfactory answers and took him to Mkhosana suburb where they subjected him to beatings with logs. Matabeleland North police spokesperson, Assistant Inspector Siphiwe Makonese professed ignorance about the case and referred Southern Eye to Victoria Falls police’s Chief Superintendent Chiwona whose mobile phone was unreachable.