Biti approached the High Court seeking an interdict preventing mobile phone network provider Econet from disclosing any information about his phone lines “without a valid court order”. The MDC-T Secretary General says the police are trying to abuse their position by claiming they are investigating criminal activities.
Only a few weeks ago the state media were trying to make the case that Biti was having an affair with an economist in his ministry. The request for his phone records is being seen as an attempt to try and prove that allegation and discredit the Minister. The alleged mistress was also one of five employees in the Ministry who were arrested by police on dubious charges that included ‘unauthorised trips’.
Police claim they are investigating a case of suspected fraud in which Biti “is believed to have authorised several foreign trips for a female economist in the ministry and giving her travel and subsistence allowances at special rates.” The police obtained a warrant from a Magistrate’s Court to get Biti’s phone records. But the Minister then approached the High Court to block this.
On Friday Justice Chinembiri Bhunu said while Biti “has the right to privacy under section 18 of the constitution, that right is not absolute. The police also have the legal right to detect, investigate and arrest suspects. Thus where the police have reasonable cause to investigate crime the subject’s right to privacy must of necessity give way for the common good and public interest to fight crime.”
It’s widely believed the campaign to vilify and tarnish the image of Biti is a covert operation by the Central Intelligence Organisation trying to smear several MDC leaders with stories of alleged affairs and other sex traps.
MDC-T National Executive member Charlton Hwende was initially sucked into the Biti-affair story by the state owned Sunday Mail before the paper later issued a retraction. On Monday Hwende told SW Radio Africa “we know they (ZANU PF) are desperate, they have lost support and don’t know how to move forward. All they can do is give us non- existent wives and girlfriends.”
Meanwhile Biti has also been the subject of an escalating hate campaign directed by Mugabe. Following a bust up between Biti and Mugabe in a meeting, a petrol bomb was thrown at the durawall of his house and ZANU PF has sponsored several demonstrations at his office.
Additionally a senior police chief recently asked traditional chiefs and headmen in Murewa to generate lighting to kill Biti, claiming civil servants will never get a decent wage as long as he is Finance Minister.
Post published in: News