Zimbabwe PM ally stands trial for terrorism

Mon Nov 9, 2009

A top ally of Zimbabwe's Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai is to stand trial on Monday, in a case that has fueled tensions in the country's fragile unity government.

Roy Bennett, the treasurer for Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change party (MDC), faces charges of terrorism, banditry and militancy.

The charges carry a possible death penalty.

Bennett, who is white and a former coffee planter, has denied the charges.

The MDC says the case is politically motivated and has been designed to stop Bennett from taking office as deputy agriculture minister.

The case has stoked tensions in the unity government of Tsvangirai and President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF party.

After Bennett's arrest in February, the MDC briefly boycotted the unity government, saying that Mugabe is frustrating efforts to swear in the party's senior officials, as required by a political agreement signed last year.

Mugabe, meanwhile, says he does not oppose Bennett becoming a minister but that he should be acquitted by the court first.

Despite the trial, Tsvangirai has pledged not to quit the unity government and challenge ZANU-PF to implement the power-sharing deal.

Bennett-- a former policeman during the Rhodesian Government, led by Prime Minister Ian Smith-- was sentenced to 12 months in jail in 2004, after being convicted of assaulting a minister during a parliamentary debate.

He returned to Zimbabwe shortly before his arrest, after spending two years in exile in South Africa.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://edition.presstv.ir/detail/110810.html.