Zim Police Quiz MDC-T Youth Over Bombing Of Biti’s House

National  |     |  

Harare, March 17, 2014 – Zimbabwean police have quizzed an MDC-T youth over the bombing of the party’s secretary-general Tendai Biti’s home.

Biti’s house was petrol bombed late last month and the opposition party indicated that it was the work of supporters linked to the country’s long ruling leader President Robert Mugabe and his Zanu PF party.

At the time of the explosion, the second one in three years which hit the security wall of Biti’s Harare house but did not injure anyone, MDC-T spokesperson Douglas Mwonzora claimed that the attack bore the fingerprints of Zanu PF party.

MDC-T youth Ishmael Kauzani was recently interrogated by police detectives at Harare Central police station over the bombing of the former Finance Minister’s house.

The police also quizzed Kauzani for allegedly participating in a demonstration in which some party youths loyal to suspended party deputy treasurer-general Elton Mangoma protested against the leadership of MDC-T President, Morgan Tsvangirai, and for allegedly assaulting the former Energy and Power Development Minister.

Mangoma was roughed up by some people outside the party’s Harvest House headquarters, some days after he wrote a protest letter to Tsvangirai demanding that he steps down.

The country’s partisan law enforcement agency, the Zimbabwe Republic Police have already indicated that the bombing of Biti’s could have been prompted by an internal party dispute over Tsvangirai’s leadership.

Kauzani denied masterminding the attack on Biti’s house because he “presently supports their cause”  and he was released into the custody of his lawyers and the police indicated that they would summon him if they intend to press ahead with the matter.

Several MDC-T youths loyal to Tsvangirai were later arrested and charged with assaulting Mangoma. But the party youths denied the allegation and blamed the suspended deputy treasurer-general for his desire to punish them because of their unflinching loyalty to the former trade union leader’s headship of the opposition party.