Jaure was among a group of 17 soldiers who were arrested by military intelligence officers and brutally tortured for defying orders to attack innocent civilians following Mugabe’s election defeat by Morgan Tsvangirai in 2008.
Jaure is set to testify in court that 10 of his colleagues were murdered during the torture sessions at Cranborne detention barracks. He too would have been killed, he says, had it not been discovered that his wife was related to a senior police officer, Innocent Matibiri.
Jaure is a former staff sergeant in an elite commando unit. He is demanding US$3 million from Mugabe and officials for torture and for ruining his military career.
The lawsuit is being handled by the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human rights. However, the case suffered a setback last year when the lawyer handling the case, Zviko Chadambuka, was harassed and detained by the CIO while serving papers on Mugabe in another matter. Another lawyer has taken over Jaure’s case.
Jaure told this newspaper that he was held incommunicado for three months. For another seven months, he was in solitary confinement where he was kept mostly naked, enduring terrible torture that included water-boarding, beatings, electric shocks and starvation. No trial date has been set, two years after the matter was first reported.
Post published in: News