AG denies lack of evidence in Bennett case

Government sources told The Zimbabwean that heavy political pressure was being exerted on the AG’s office to proceed with the case. “Despite there being difficulties in drawing up the charges, the issue is going ahead, thanks to the political pressure,” said one source.

According to people involved in the case, there is no strong legal basis upon which the AG’s office could draw up charges that would result in a successful prosecution.

Trial proceedings against Bennett, which were scheduled to resume in Mutare on Monday, were delayed last Saturday.

Bennett faces charges of conspiring to possess weaponry for insurgency, banditry, sabotage and terrorism. The weapons charges involve a possible death sentence.

The arms charges relate to an alleged plot in January 2006 ostensibly uncovered by Zimbabwe’s security forces in which they claimed to have found an arms cache in the eastern city of Mutare. Police arrested a local arms dealer Peter Hitschmann whom they claimed to be a former member of the Rhodesian forces.

They accused him of working in cahoots with Bennett and the current co-Home Affairs minister Giles Mutsekwa, to destabilise the country. The group was linked to a pressure group called the Zimbabwe Freedom Movement – an outfit of former Rhodesians they alleged was plotting regime change.

Alleged treason plot

The State further accused Bennett of plotting to kill President Mugabe when he travelled to the eastern city for his belated birthday party on February 25, 2005. “To achieve this, the group agreed to spill oil on Christmas Pass Highway when the motorcade would be approaching so that the motorcade would slip and get involved in an accident,” the State outline said then.

Bennett, who had just spent a year in prison after shoving Justice minister Patrick Chinamasa during a heated Parliamentary debate, could not stomach going back to prison and fled to neighbouring South Africa.

Bennett was arrested on the weapons charges on February 13 as he returned from self-imposed exile to take up his post in a unity government, and was only released on bail in March.

Bennett was then re-arrested on the same charges last week Wednesday, only to be released on bail on Friday. Treason charges against him have been dropped in favour of the terrorism and other charges.

In response to Bennett’s latest charges, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has said that his MDC party would boycott Zimbabwe’s new power-sharing coalition government. Tsvangirai denounced the charges as a deliberate plot by Mugabe and tried to make it clear that he and his party were not withdrawing from the government, but that they would not participate in cabinet meetings and other executive functions with Mugabe’s party.

AG worried

Attorney General Johannes Tomana told State Press that it was “worrisome” that the MDC was trying to “override the rule of law. “Institutions should be allowed to function without this kind of interference,” Tomana said. “Let institutions do their jobs as provided for by the law. In America they throw people facing such charges into Guantanamo Bay. Why then do they not want Zimbabwes courts to deal with this matter according to the countrys laws and universally appreciated precepts of combating terrorism?

Separately, Tomana denied his office was struggling to find evidence that could nail Bennett or that his office had been advised that the case would fail on constitutional technicalities.

Sources said that as the issue stood: “These are just attempts at stopping Bennett from getting into office as deputy Agriculture minister. Its meant to scuttle the land audit which risks exposing the true extent of looting. There is also racism at play. But the truth of the matter is that there is no evidence. It is only due to political pressure that the case is still going ahead,” one source said.

Senior politicians were desperate to haul the MDC treasurer before the courts and try and harass him even though the prosecution could boomerang. Defence lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa said eight months after he was arrested, she had been given no specific charges or any outline of the case. She also said a previous court order ruled that Bennett could be tried in the lower court in Mutare. She described the courts disregard of this ruling, and his indictment to the High Court and his detention last week Wednesday as a “gross abuse of court processes”.

Our source said Chinamasa was driving the charges against Bennett. “That the matter might be struck down is highly possible. It would have made a lot of sense for the matter to die a natural death within the office of the AG,” the source added. MDC policy chief, Eddie Cross, said Bennett was facing false accusations adding the State had run out of excuses.

“The fact is that they still do not have case against him even though they have been desperately searching for people who will testify against him,” he said.