Word: dumbutshena
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...verdict brought cheers from the packed gallery in Zimbabwe's High Court. Air Force Chief of Staff Hugh Slatter and his five co-defendants and fellow officers, ruled Judge Enoch Dumbutshena, were innocent of charges that they had aided in a devastating sabotage attack on Zimbabwe's air force in 1982. The government's case against the officers, he declared, rested on inadmissible confessions extracted under torture...
...trial drew capacity crowds, including families of the accused, Air Force and Army officers and observers from the U.S. and British embassies. In arguments before Dumbutshena, who is Zimbabwe's first black judge, the government prosecutor used signed confessions from the defendants to bolster claims that the men were recruited for the attack by South African agents. According to the prosecution, one officer admitted the bombing was intended to bring about the fall of Mugabe's government...
...finding the officers innocent, Dumbutshena said their stories of mistreatment had "the ring of truth," while the government had mustered "very little incriminating evidence." Dumbutshena, however, is powerless to dismiss the new government detention order. It will confine the men indefinitely while a tribunal evaluates the government's case for jailing them. The order continues a disturbing trend in Zimbabwe: in the past year, eight other people found not guilty of security-related crimes have nevertheless been rearrested without charge. Increasingly, it seems, Mugabe is uncomfortable leaving justice in the hands of the courts...
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