Bennett now a free man

High Court judge Justice Muchineripi Bhunu in May acquitted Bennett, but the decision was challenged in the Supreme Court by Attorney-General Johannes Tomana. The AG made an application for leave to appeal, and if the judge had granted that leave, then there was going to be an appeal hearing.

“In the result, I agree with the conclusion of the learned judge that this was a proper case in which a discharge in terms of Section 198(3) of the Criminal Procedure and Evidence Act was appropriate,” Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku ruled.

Bennett, who is in self-imposed exile after numerous threats on his life, did not attend the ruling but was represented by his legal counsel.

The charges against Bennett, who is also treasurer-general of theMDC-T, has caused acrimony in the GNU, with President Robert Mugabe vowing that he would never allow Bennett to serve in his government – ostensibly because he served with the Selous Scouts. But, as with so many of Mugabes pronouncements, this is false. Bennett was arrested in February two years ago as the other ministers in the GNU took the oath of office. He was charged with illegal possession of arms for purposes of committing terrorism, banditry and sabotage.

The state’s case was that Bennett plotted to destroy a major communications link and assassinate key government officials. The case relied on emails it claimed to have gleaned from its chief witness, 49-year-old former policeman and arms dealer Peter Hitschmann. Hitschmann disowned the emails and flatly rejected charges that he colluded with Bennett.

In his ruling, Judge Bhunu said there was no evidence that linked Bennett to the charges and questioned testimony from some of the state witnesses, including a supposed telecommunications expert, whom he said had “amazing ignorance.”

That ruling was also upheld by Chidyausiku, who said: “The learned judge in the court a quo, in a meticulous and well reasoned judgment, concluded that the accused had no case to answer and discharged him at the close of the State’s case.

“I have carefully perused the voluminous record in this case and I am satisfied that on the evidence led up to the close of the State case, the learned judge could not have come to different conclusion than he did. “After the learned judge ruled, quite correctly in my view, inadmissible the confessions of Hitschmann and the e-mails, there was literally no evidence linking the accused to the crimes he was charged with. Bennett could have faced the death penalty if found guilty.