Chinamasa Acquitted

Reporting by ZimOnline
(South Africa)
Zimbabwe Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa was on Monday cleared of charges of trying to obstruct the course of justice and in a bizarre twist to the matter, unknown people threatened to harm the state prosecutor who handled the matter.
Retired magistrate Phineas Chipopoteke - summoned out of retirement to hear the matter after sitting magistrates chickened out of presiding over the trial of the Justice Minister - said Chinamasa had no case to answer.
Giving reasons for dismissing the state's case that Chinamasa had tried to bribe a key witness not to testify against a Cabinet colleague accused of inciting violence, the magistrate said: "The state has dismally failed to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt and the accused is therefore not guilty".
However, only moments after Chinamasa was declared a free man, the prosecutor who led the state in the matter received three telephone calls from unidentified people who told him to flee and seek political asylum outside the country or face severe but unspecified punishment.
The prosecutor, Levison Chikafu, could not talk to ZimOnline about the threatening telephone calls while his boss, Attorney General (AG) Sobuza Gula-Ndebele, was not immediately available for comment on the matter.
Chinamasa, who told journalists after his acquittal that the charges against him were "baseless, false and malicious" and meant to destroy his political career, denied knowledge of or association with whoever was behind the threatening calls to the prosecutor. "I have no business threatening people. No ways," he said.
Chikafu's colleagues at the AG's office said the mysterious callers accused the prosecutor of being used by Gula-Ndebele in his tussle with Chinamasa for control of the justice department. They also accused the prosecutor of being a pawn in the vicious battle within the ruling ZANU PF party over President Robert Mugabe's succession.
"Two of the callers said he (Chikafu) should think of seeking political asylum outside the country. They said he should realise that the cheap heroism (in prosecuting Chinamasa) he was looking for was gone and he would now be hounded out of the system," said an official at the AG's department, who spoke on condition he was not named.
"One of the callers accused Chikafu of being used by Gula-Ndebele to fight Chinamasa as well as being a pawn in the succession issue," said another official from the same department, who also added that Chikafu was "looking at his options" after the threatening calls.
Chinamasa was accused of trying to stop James Kaunye, a prosecution witness, from testifying against Minister of State Security Didymus Mutasa. The minister has been accused of inciting public violence.
Kaunye told the court during the trial that Chinamasa had offered him a farm if he withdrew public violence charges against Albert Nyakuedzwa, Mutasa's supporter.
Nyakuedzwa and 23 other Mutasa supporters are accused of assaulting Kaunye in the Makoni North constituency in eastern Zimbabwe two years ago ahead of an internal ZANU PF primary election to choose the ruling party's candidate for the March polls.
Some of Mutasa's supporters have already been jailed for committing political violence.
But the trial of Chinamasa was also seen as yet another clash between the two factions vying to control ZANU PF when and if Mugabe steps down at the end of his term in 2008.
Chinamasa belongs to a faction of ZANU PF led by former parliamentary speaker Emmerson Mnangagwa, who until late last year was the frontrunner to succeed Mugabe.
Gula-Ndebele, who pursued charges against Chinamasa is aligned to former army general Solomon Mujuru's faction that is pushing to ensure party and state second Vice-President Joice Mujuru (wife to Solomon) takes over the top job should Mugabe leave.