Court allows disputed Bennett email

By Nelson Banya

HARARE (Reuters) – Zimbabwe’s High Court on Wednesday admitted disputed email evidence implicating opposition politician Roy Bennett     in a plot against President Robert Mugabe’s government.

Bennett, a white farmer and a senior official in Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), faces a possible death penalty if convicted of illegal possession of arms for “terrorism, banditry and sabotage”.

Defence lawyers had asked the court to reject emails linking Bennett to the alleged crime, arguing that they had been doctored and that a key state witness, Peter Hitschmann, who is alleged to have conspired with Bennett, disowned them.

The court had previously thrown out confessions by Hitschmann linking Bennett to the crime, on the grounds that the statements had been extracted under torture. High Court judge Chinembiri Bhunu ruled that the emails were created before Hitschmann’s alleged assault.

“The emails cannot be tainted by the alleged abuse suffered by Hitschmann,” Bhunu said. “They are relevant and vital to the fair resolution of the case and are hereby admitted as evidence.”

The arrest and trial of Bennett, MDC nominee for deputy agriculture minister in a government set up by Mugabe and Tsvangirai, has raised tensions in the power-sharing administration.

The state charges Bennett with funding a 2006 plot to blow up a major communication link in the country and assassinate key government figures. He is accused of having deposited funds in Hitschmann’s Mozambican account for the operation.

Bennett denies the charges, which he says are politically motivated. Hitschmann, an arms trader and key state witness who faced the same charges but was convicted in 2006 on a lesser charge of possessing dangerous weapons, has absolved Bennett.