Roy Bennett released
To the delight of the tens of thousands of Zimbabweans and huge numbers of supporters around the world who have been waiting for this day, Roy Bennett was today released from prison in Harare. Zimbabwe’s most famous prisoner of conscience and icon of the struggle for freedom and democracy, walked free from the regime’s notorious Chikurubi high security prison, which in recent years has come to represent the brutal face of Mugabe’s fascist tyranny.
There were emotional scenes when Bennett was reunited with his wife, Heather, outside the Chikurubi Prison. The reunion was a low key event deliberately because no one had known for sure that the regime would comply with even the most rudimentary standards of justice by observing the convention of remitting one third of the sentence for good behaviour. When they saw him, family and friends immediately commented on how thin the once burly Bennett now was – 27 kgs (4.25 Stone) lighter than when he was committed to one of Mugabe’s hell-hole prisons.
Roy Bennett was elected as Member of Parliament for the Chimanimani constituency in the 2000 Parliamentary Elections, representing the then fledgling Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). He subsequently suffered all manner of harassment, intimidation and outright persecution (see our article entitled ‘Supreme Court Challenge’ : 25 May 2005) at the hands of ZANU PF, culminating in his committal to prison on October 28 2004 by a clearly partisan and indeed vengeful group of Members of Parliament. In proceedings which were constitutionally irregular and clearly subject to political bias, ZANU PF used their Parliamentary majority to have Bennett sentenced to imprisonment with hard labour for 15 months, with 3 months suspended. The sentence was manifestly excessive and disproportionate in any event to the “offence” which occurred in May 2004 when Bennett responded to verbal abuse from the Attorn
ey General Patrick Chinamasa by pushing him to the floor of the House. Bennett’s lawyers subsequently made several unsuccessful bids to have the sentence set aside, most recently on May 26 when the matter was argued before the Supreme Court. On that occasion, despite the urgency of the appeal and a concession by the Attorney General (later retracted) that the sentence was disproportionate, the Chief Justice reserved judgment – effectively denying Bennett his constitutional right to a speedy disposition of his case.
Bennett was again selected as the MDC candidate for the Chimanimani constituency for the general election in March 2005. However the regime effectively blocked him from contesting the seat by bringing heavy pressure to bear on the judiciary following a decision in his favour by an electoral court. Mugabe himself declared that the decision of the electoral court was “unacceptable”, and a higher court subsequently over-ruled that decision. His wife, Heather, stood for the MDC and was defeated in a disputed electoral result.
Though much thinner and physically weaker than when last seen in public, Roy Bennett appears to have lost none of his fighting spirit. He is due to give a press conference later today.
