Bennett case postponed to January

The case was postponed to January 15 after Attorney General Johannes Tomana told the court that Mutare-based gun-dealer Peter Hitschmann was not present.

“He (Hitschmann) did not come because we thought he would not take the witness stand. This is a situation that we did not anticipate. The way forward is to adjourn to the next available date,” Tomana said.

The state accuses Bennett the MDC-T is nominee for deputy agriculture minister in the unity government of plotting to overthrow President Robert Mugabe and that he gave money to firearms-dealer Hitschmann to buy weapons to be used to assassinate the veteran leader.

But Bennetts lawyer, Beatrice Mtetwa, has told the court that police tortured Hitschmann until he lost consciousness to force the gun-dealer into making a confession implicating her client.

Hitschmann has also claimed that police tortured him in a bid to obtain from him statements that could incriminate Bennett, while investigators have failed to prove existence of an account allegedly held by Hitschmann at a Mozambican bank and into which the state claims money to buy weapons was deposited.

The police have also conceded that some of the guns that the state claims were bought with money supplied by Bennett were actually recovered from the home of an army officer.

The police say guns found from the army officers house were mistakenly included among the lot recovered from Hitschmanns house.

But Mtetwa accuses the state of falsifying evidence and deliberately inflating the number of weapons recovered from Hitschmanns house in a bid to secure Bennetts conviction.