The Star (SA),
18th June 2008
Lawyers say his continued detention is an enormous challenge to SADC
A Harare High Court judge has refused to free top opposition politician and mediator Tendai Biti even though police failed to charge him with any crime six days after he returned home and was immediately arrested. Biti, secretary-general of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change and one of its representatives in President Thabo Mbeki’s mediation attempts, was arrested on Thursday as he stepped off a plane at Harare International Airport after spending two months in South Africa. The decision comes as the French government called on Zimbabwe to release Biti and allow him to take part in Morgan Tsvangirai’s campaign in the second round of the presidential election on June 27. Judge Samuel Kudya dismissed argument that the arrest warrant served on Biti, which ordered that he should immediately be brought before a magistrate, had been ignored. In addition, the court heard that Biti had not been charged within 48 hours of being arrested as demanded in law, and therefore, his lawyer Lewis Uriri argued, he should be released immediately. “I am not satisfied that the applicant has demonstrated before me for whatever he is calling continued detention is unlawful. I therefore dismiss the application with costs,” Judge Kudya said last night.
Police say they will charge Biti with treason today, using a clumsy, ill-written document that the defence says was authored by the Central Intelligence Organisation shortly before the first round of elections on March 29. Biti is also likely to be charged with causing disaffection among the security forces and bringing the name of President Robert Mugabe into disrepute, all charges which refer to the crude five-page memorandum on “Transition” that Biti is accused of writing.
Another senior Zimbabwean lawyer, David Coltart, founding legal secretary of the MDC and elected a senator on March 29, said last night: “This is brazen. Here we have a man who the police have said for weeks they wanted to arrest. So they could have done whatever investigations they needed to do in that time. The accusations are based on a document, not based on evidence of any third parties. The law in Zimbabwe over the last eight years has not been an instrument of justice, it has been a weapon in the hands of Zanu PF. This is a shocking, brazen, outrageous breach of due process.” Coltart said the continued detention of Biti was an “enormous challenge” to the Southern African Development Community, which claimed to be mediating in the Zimbabwean crisis. “Will SADC ignore this? If it does, it becomes lumped with Zanu PF. Is SADC going to defend the basic tenets of democracy or not?”
Some SADC observers have arrived in Zimbabwe in the last few days but weeks after Zanu PF violence has made the possibility of a fair election impossible. Scores of MDC officials are in detention and none can campaign for Tsvangirai ahead of the run-off on June 27.