Visiting Zim MP wants police protection

A Zimbabwean parliamentarian currently on a visit to Namibia has appealed to the Namibian police for urgent protection, citing fears that spy agency officials from his home country have arrived in Namibia to abduct him and take him back to face treason charges.
This afternoon, a letter hand-delivered to the office of police chief Sebastian Ndeitunga, noted that Chalton Hwende, a Zimbabwean MDC MP who is visiting family living in Namibia, has discovered members of the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) are around to “abduct and rendition him to Zimbabwe.”
The letter states Hwende is wanted for treason, incitement to commit public violence and other charges and is asking the police to provide urgent protection against “what will be an unlawful abduction and possible rendition” back to Zimbabwe, with the threat of an unfair trial there, long imprisonment or even the death penalty as a result of the treason charges.
The members of the CIO, according to the letter drafted by lawyer Norman Tjombe of Tjombe-Elago Inc, are already in Namibia, after they arrived on or before Monday.
Ndeitunga told Namibian Sun briefly telephonically he is aware of the protection request but as he was not at the office this afternoon, he has actioned it to other officials.
He added however that any person “who feels their life is in danger should go to the police and make a case. In our country everybody should be protected, in particularly when their lives are in danger.”
He further suggested that under the circumstances Hwende should consider taking “his case up with central government.”
The letter notes that Zimbabwe still carries the death penalty for treason offences which is one of the reasons Hwende has feared returning there, “especially at the time of the brutal security clampdown in response to the protests of the fuel increases.”
Tjombe also warned his client will not receive a fair trial should he return, citing a march of hundreds of lawyers who protested the compromising of the rule of law in the country “in what is referred to as ‘fast-tracked’ criminal trials” that offer little justice.
Tjombe further informed the police that should his client not be afforded the necessary protection they will not hesitate to approach the High Court of Namibia on an urgent basis for an appropriate order.

JANA-MARI SMITH