MARONDERA - MDC-T activist and council municipal police officer, Freddy Munemo, was arrested by police last week after he was brutally attacked by Zanu (PF) thugs here.
Munemo is among former police officers who turned MDC and were accused by state security agents of revamping MDC youths wing into a vibrant unit rising to Zanu (PF) challenges. Munemo and Admire Takawira, both members of the local municipal police and former Zimbabwe Republic Police Officers, are constantly arrested by the police on trumped-up charges to derail MDC party activities in the district.
To cover up for the barbaric attack on Munemo by Zanu (PF) thugs, partisan police officers, Masendu and Member in Charge Dombotombo Police Post, Assistant Inspector Eniah, framed charges and linked the MDC activist to an attempted robbery which had occurred in town. A police officer had survived an armed robbery near the Harare-Mutare road some 200 meters from Dombotombo Police Station. He managed to cut with a knife below the chest of the assailant before he was shot by the thug in the shoulder. Since the attack on Munemo was reported at the police post, top cops-cum Zanu (PF) sympathizers at the police station found a loophole to clamp down on influential MDC and former police officers. Eniah ordered police to arrest and detain Munemo. The grand plan was to detain other former police officers in MDC, said a senior police officer at the district police headquarters, where Munemo was detained for two days.
Munemo was allegedly attacked by Zanu (PF) members Gift Madambudziko Midzi, Taurai Sauti, a Party District Coordinating Committee Member, Gudo and Murayichiro. Sauti was recently set free by the criminal courts after he was told to ask forgiveness from Gift Nezi, whom he attacked in May and knocked out his tooth for expressing independent views in the constitution consultation process.
Despite police being advised by medical doctors that bruises sustained by Munemo were not characteristic of a knife cut, they kept him in custody without reasonable justification. He was later released when council ambulance drivers indicated they had ferried a man with a deep wound below the chest to hospital on Tuesday night.
Sources within the police said harassment of MDC activists was part of the planned silencing of vocal and influential Tsvangirai followers by state security agents ahead of elections expected next year. Masendu and Eniah are unpopular for openly expressing their hatred towards MDC. A number of MDC activists have been unlawfully detained by police on instructions from the two partisan officers. Meanwhile, police arrested another MDC-T youth, Brian Gwekwerere Phiri, last Sunday, for yet un-established charges.
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