MDC leader Mutambara seized at airport

MDC leader Mutambara seized at airport

MUTAMBARA, centre, seen at a press conference last Friday flanked by NCA chairman Lovemore Madhuku and Tendai Biti, secretary general of the rival MDC faction

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By Torby Chimhashu and Violet Gonda

ARTHUR Mutambara, the leader of a faction of Zimbabwe's opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) spent his second night in police cells Sunday following his arrest at the Harare International Airport last Saturday.

Mutambara was seized as he tried to board a South Africa-bound plane.

Police also arrested Grace Kwinjeh and Sekai Holland, two other MDC activists who were seeking medical treatment abroad after allegedly being beaten by police last week.

The African Union, meanwhile, called on Zimbabwe to respect its citizens' human rights.

Mutambara was arrested seperately from Kwinjeh and Holland who were also travelling to South Africa to seek specialised treatment, officials said.

Police confiscated Holland's passport and Kwinjeh Emergency Travel Document (ETD), which she was granted late Friday after the Registrar General’s Office had initially declined to issue the ETD.

Lawyers representing both Mutambara and the two female activists, loyal to a rival faction of the MDC led by Morgan Tsvangirai, were preparing for an urgent court application to seek the release and return of the activists' travel documents.

Mutambara's lawyer Harrison Nkomo said: "Arthur's arrest is illegal. We will be filing an urgent chamber application in the High Court on Monday. The same charges of inciting public violence which were thrown out last week by Justice Chinembiri Bhunu are the same that he has been charged with.

"I don't understand honestly why he has been arrested when his colleagues who were facing the same charges are free."

Mutambara was last week arrested together with Tsvangirai and other leading pro-democracy activists including NCA chairman, Lovemore Madhuku. Many of the activists claimed they were severely assaulted in police cells.

Beatrice Mtetwa, representing Holland and Kwinjeh, was battling to secure the release of her clients who are under police guard at the Avenues Clinic.

She said: "We are waiting for a medical report from the doctors. Justice Kudya will hear our application for the release of travel documents for Grace and Sekai. Right now they are under armed police guard at Avenues clinic."

Mtetwa also did not understand why police would bar her clients from leaving the hospital despite being declared free by the High Court last week.

From Friday there have been many reports of attacks on civilians by the army and police in Harare's poor townships.

The family of slain MDC activist, Gift Tandare, who was killed during clashes with police in Highffield last week said his body had been seized by state security agents from a private funeral parlour.

Tandare's corpse was taken away from Doves Funeral Parlour by suspected Central Intelligence Organisation agents, apparently fearing that violence would flare if he was buried in Harare.

Thousands of MDC supporters from all Harare districts had planned a Palestinian-style march with Tandare's body from his Glen View 3 home to Granville Cemetery, about 10 kilometres from the suburb.

Alex Muchadehama, the lawyer representing the family, said the seizure of the body was carried out after his father was forced into signing a consent form.

The lawyer said there was a burial order and the deceased was going to be buried on Monday at Granville Cemetery. But early Saturday morning, state agents “then forced the father and the aunt to go to the Registrar of births and deaths to change the burial order so that it would read that the burial is now going to take place in Dotito in Mount Darwin.”

The family, as a compromise, wanted to bury Tandare at their rural home in Mount Darwin but were forced to switch plans because of unrealistic demands by their local Chief Kandeya, the lawyer said.

Initially the chief had refused to allow Tandare’s family to bury him at Mashanga village on Saturday, on the grounds that he was an MDC activist. The chief later wanted four head of cattle as payment to allow the activist's burial to go ahead.

Muchadehama said he went to the funeral parlour on Saturday and was told the body had been taken without the consent of Tandare’s wife and other close family members.

He added: “When we went there immediately after 9am, there was no body of the deceased at Doves.”

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