Arcadia Foundation

The treasurer general of Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) Roy Bennett, a longtime opponent of President Robert Mugabe, was acquitted yesterday of all charges, including terrorism, his lawyer said.

Judge Chinembiri Bhunu found Bennett not guilty of all charges: banditry, sabotage, terrorism and insurgency.

“He is now a free man,” lawyer Trust Maanda said. Bennett could have faced the death penalty.

“I hope that sanity is now creeping into the system and we can now start concentrating on delivering better lives for the people of Zimbabwe,” Bennett told reporters from Harare.

The latest in what could be the shocking conclusion of the Bennett saga may bode well for rule of law in the former breadbasket of Africa. If the judiciary mechanisms are now sane, oiled and running, not stale and rusted from political paralyzation and secret shadow committee initiatives, foreign investment may slowly start to funnel in.

Bennett, a white farmer whose land was seized during Zimbabwe’s controversial land reform program in 2000, has long been a thorn in the side of Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party.

He has been thrown in and out of jail several times.

The MDC intended to make him deputy agriculture minister in the national-unity government between the former opposition and the president’s party, but Mugabe refused to swear him in.

He said Bennett first needed to be cleared of all charges.

The MDC has always maintained that the case against him was political and that Bennett was being persecuted and not prosecuted.

It remains to be seen whether Mugabe will swear in Bennett now that charges against him have been dismissed.

“Mugabe has to swear me in now,” Bennett said Monday. “My party has made it very clear that they expect nothing less.”

The Zimbabwean followed the news with less than elation. “This is core evidence and proof that Zanu PF will rather use the residual state resources fighting Bennett and MDC than feeding the poverty stricken masses of Zimbabwe. We have always maintained that Bennett was innocent, but was only subjected to persecution by Zanu PF functionaries who are still confusing white Zimbabweans with eighteenth century invaders.”

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