Bredenkamp flees Zimbabwe probe

Bredenkamp flees Zimbabwe probe

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By Taurai Nyasha

THE succession battle within Zimbabwe's ruling Zanu PF party has claimed another victim with controversial businessman, John Bredenkamp fleeing a probe into his companies.

Super rich Bredenkamp, reports said, fled Zimbabwe on Tuesday in his private jet.

Bredenkamp has been named as the main financial backer of the infamous Tsholotso indaba at which President Robert Mugabe claims one of his top officials -- Emmerson Mnangagwa and ex-Information Minister Jonathan Moyo -- plotted a palace coup.

It was claimed that the November 2004 indaba at Dinyane school in Moyo's Tsholotsho constituency sought to endorse Emmerson Mnangagwa as President Robert Mugabe’s deputy at the expense of current Vice President Joice Mujuru.

This week, Zimbabwe's Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) and the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) launched a joint operation into Bredenkamp's "economic crimes", reports said.

Bredenkamp -- a controversial international investor rated the United Kingdom’s 33rd richest citizen in 2003 -- was raided by the country’s National Economic Conduct Inspectorate (NECI) Monday with the police seeking to investigate cases said to be linked to economic sabotage.

The business tycoon has long been known to hold more than one passport but sources say besides flouting the country’s tight foreign exchange rules, he is being investigated for carrying a Zimbabwean passport, another from South Africa and a third from the Netherlands.

Mugabe and his close supporters were apparently miffed that Bredenkamp had thrown his support behind Mnangagwa. Bredenkamp, it is claimed, paid out $7 billion into Mnangagwa campaign to become deputy leader of Zanu PF, a position that eventually went to Mujuru. The tycoon was also reported to have laid out his private jet to Mnangagwa’s cause, charges that were vehemently refuted by those in the camp.

While they admitted having used Bredenkamp’s private jet, they instead claimed that they had hired the plane.

The state -run Herald newspaper reported Wednesday that Bredenkamp is being probed on allegations of flouting exchange control regulations, tax evasion and contravening the Citizenship Act.

"It is understood that he had established offshore companies in South Africa and his Zimbabwean operations were exporting to the offshore companies,” the paper quotes an official source as saying. "In other words, he was exporting to himself.’’

Bredenkamp has in the past been named as being involved in brokering substantial arms shipments from countries such as Bulgaria to Zimbabwe for probable use in the DRC war in 2000.

Bredenkamp, who administers his worldwide business empire from offices in Hurst, near Reading, has a personal fortune, owned through off shore trusts, which is estimated at well over £440 million.

Once in charge of the financial affairs of the Rhodesian Defence Forces, Bredenkamp was involved in sanctions-busting for the Smith regime in return for a highly lucrative concession to export tobacco from Rhodesia. He went on to turn his company, Casalee, into a multi-million pound empire with offices around the world, including Windsor in the UK.

Casalee's business dealings were often racked with controversy. In the early 1990s, documents came to light which indicated that Casalee had acted as an intermediary in the sale of anti-personnel mines to Iraq. But during the same time, Bredenkamp remained loyal to Zimbabwe. At the height of the fuel crisis in 2000, he, through a company called Zimalzam, offered to provide fuel by rail from South Africa. The deal went sour and led to a flurry of allegations of deliberately inflated tenders.

He was implicated in a United Nations report on the illegal exploitation of natural resources in the DRC - Zimbabwejournalists.com
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