Mugabe aide turns tables, farmer arrested

Politics
Police on Friday arrested Matabeleland South farmer David Connolly, a week after the Bulawayo High Court ruled that a senior official in President Robert Mugabe’s office was in contempt of court for pushing him out of his farm.

Police on Friday arrested Matabeleland South farmer David Connolly, a week after the Bulawayo High Court ruled that a senior official in President Robert Mugabe’s office was in contempt of court for pushing him out of his farm.

Staff Reporter

Top Mugabe aide Ray Ndhlukula had been given up to last Thursday to leave Connolly’s Centenary Farm in Figtree after he evicted him last year in violation of a court order.

The judge had also given Ndhlukula a 90 day suspended sentence for contempt of court.

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However, in a shock turn of events, police from Plumtree picked Connolly from Bulawayo and took him to the border town accusing him of contempt of court.

Connolly’s lawyer, Josphat Tshuma, who accompanied the farmer to Plumtree, blasted the police, describing their action as “unacceptable.

Sadc Tribunal Rights Watch chairperson Ben Freeth accused police of being partisan.

“In the lawless, upside down world of justice in Zimbabwe, summoning a farmer to a police station for contempt of court when a ruling has been handed down in his favour – and on a Friday afternoon when the courts are closed – is typical of the modus operandi of the partisan police force,” Freeth said.