‘Free and fair’ Yengeni jailed for corruption

Yengeni arrived at the gates of Pollsmoor prison accompanied by his party bosses, cabinet ministers and ANC supporters.
Yengeni stunned the international community when he indorsed the violence-plagued Zimbabwe general elections of 2000 as free and fair. All other election observer missions were hesitant to bless the election results, which were narrowly won by President Robert Mugabe’s ruling Zanu (PF). Candidates and supporters of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) were subjected to intense violence, which left hundreds dead and maimed during the election period.
Yengeni was the head of the South Africa parliamentary observe mission by then, before he got embroiled in a scandal which landed him prison.
He was convicted for fraud after he failed to disclose to parliament the 47% discount he got on the luxury 4×4, metallic green Merdeces-Benz ML32 worth R359 000, from a European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS), a bidder in the multibillion-Rand arms deal.
Yengeni who was the chairman of the parliamentary joint standing committee on defence only paid R182 563 for the flashy wheels.
Speaking at the prison gates soon before swapping his trendy suit for an orange prison garment, Yengeni declared his incarceration as an act of “injustice”.
The Zimbabwe Refugees Forum Chairman, Tawanda Mswazi, described Yengeni’s imprisonment as “free and fair.”
“If Yengeni had any sense of justice, he would have realized that hundreds of Zimbabweans who were raped, tortured, murdered and cheated by Zanu (PF) in 2000 elections, were being subjected to injustice,” said Mswazi.