Zim judge 'ignored assessors in verdict'
July 28, 2004 Edition 1
Basildon Peta
Judgment in a case in which Zimbabwe's main opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai is accused of "plotting" to kill President Robert Mugabe was postponed indefinitely this week because the presiding judge had reached a verdict without consulting his two assessors, the Independent Foreign Service has established.
Authoritative sources said the two assessors in the case had then disagreed with the judge's verdict, leaving him with no option but to postpone the case.
Zimbabwe High Court Judge President Paddington Garwe, widely perceived as a Mugabe supporter, presided over the treason case with the aid of two assessors. He had been billed to pass judgment on the case tomorrow, considered a make or break one for Tsvangirai.
Judge Garwe's office informed Tsvangirai's lawyers last month that judgment would be passed on July 29. But the office changed the date, saying the assessors had requested records and transcripts of the case.
The Independent Foreign Service was authoritatively told last night that Garwe had convicted Tsvangirai over the alleged plot to kill Mugabe, but that the assessors refused to rubber stamp this decision. Tsvangirai faces the death penalty upon conviction.
The sources said the assessors were enraged that Judge Garwe had reached a decision on a matter of fact without their input, contrary to the rules of court. All matters of fact should be decided by the majority from the two judges and his assessors while only the judge has the discretion to decide on matters of law.
In this way the judges had to determine whether it was a matter of fact that Tsvangirai plotted to kill Mugabe. Had they answered in the affirmative, the judge would have had the discretion to decide on questions of law, mainly the appropriate punishment to be imposed.
During his tenure Judge Garwe has passed several decisions that favoured Mugabe. In 2002 he turned down an opposition application to extend the number of voting days in the presidential election. This was despite long queues of stranded voters in urban centres who had not had a chance to vote.
Garwe's alleged guilty verdict would probably end Tsvangirai's political career as he would have no chances of succeeding at the Supreme Court which has been converted into an even more loyalist branch of the Zimbabwe government. But the two assessors may still save Tsvangirai if they disagree with Garwe.
The state based its case against Tsvangirai on a grainy and inaudible video supplied by Ari Ben Menashe, a Canadian-based Israeli-born political consultant, who has been involved in many shady deals around the world. A US congressional committee report in the 1980s described Menashe as a "talented liar".
Tsvangirai insisted the grainy video tape was manipulated to implicate him. Ben Menashe agreed in court that he had been paid more than US$500 000 for his work for the Mugabe government but denied that he was specifically paid to frame Tsvangirai.
