Sunday Mail editor arrested after dawn raids

Armed police officers raided Herald House in the early hours of the morning looking for the editor of The Sunday Mail, Edmund Kudzayi. 

At the time of the raid Kudzayi is said to have sneaked out of the offices and was on the run but unconfirmed reports are suggesting he is now in police custody.

The police demanded access to Kudzayi’s office and took a laptop Mac Book Pro, IMAQ laptop, Kia cellphone, white charger adapters, a power bank, a flash stick, and an “MDC-T debate disc” for April 29, 2014. They also confiscated power cables, a computer CPU, a monitor, a keyboard and a mouse.

According to reports the police launched simultaneous dawn raids at the homes of both Kudzayi in Harare and Chronicle editor Mduduzi Mathuthu in Bulawayo.

Police were also searching for Dumisani Muleya, the editor of the privately-owned Zimbabwe Independent newspaper, after several visits to his office.

“I understand from colleagues at work that the police officers, when asked why they wanted to see me, said ‘it’s business’. I’ve no business with the police, and until they state specifically why they want me, I will not be turning myself in,” Muleya is quoted saying.

Mathuthu used his twitter account to report a break in at his house:

“Had a break in at my house this morning.  Helluva lot of stuff stolen, from TV, clothes through to Cremora! Do they know it’s World Cup?” he tweeted.

“A related occurrence in Harare now giving me cause to worry,” before he later added “I’m learning of break-in at Sunday Mail editor’s office, computer stolen – no-one knows by who.”

Mathuthu also tweeted “What on the face of it looked like straight forward break-in at my house now assuming a sinister look.”

Motives for the raids are unknown although its widely believed Kudzayi as editor of the African Aristocrat blog penned a 2010 article claiming that Mugabe’s daughter Bona had been raped in Singapore after a student party.

According to the report Bona filed rape charges against two Tanzanian students studying in Singapore at the time. The two students who were put under police investigation however insisted that she had consensual sex with them.

The report claimed that Bona who studied under the name Tracy Guvamombe alleged that she was a victim of drink spiking and rape at a student party held in the upmarket Faber Park neighbourhood.

One of the accused was identified as the 27 year old son of a Tanzanian business tycoon. The suspects allegedly invited Bona to the lavish party and plied her with spiked wines and went on to have sex with her in one of the bedrooms.

Early this month President Mugabe branded his information minister Jonathan Moyo a “devil incarnate”, accusing him of appointing editors of state-owned newspapers who were sympathetic to the opposition.

Mugabe complained that Zanu PF had been infiltrated by “weevils” (a crop pest) bent on destroying the party from within.

The Zanu PF secretary for administration Didymus Mutasa later urged party youths in Mutare to use gamatox (a lethal pesticide) to deal with the alleged “weevils”.

Both Mathuthu and Kudzayi were appointed by Moyo in a major shakeup of the state media.