From combined dispatches
HARARE, Zimbabwe — Police arrested the editor of Zimbabwe’s leading independent weekly and two of his reporters yesterday after the paper purportedly insulted President Robert Mugabe in a story about his vacation, the editor’s attorney said.
Iden Wetherell of the Zimbabwe Independent, a respected business and political weekly, was expected to be charged with criminal defamation of Mr. Mugabe, said lawyer Linda Cook.
The paper reported in Friday’s edition that Mr. Mugabe commandeered one of the heavily indebted national airline’s jets for an Asian vacation with his family and a small party of aides.
The report, “Mugabe grabs plane for Far East holiday,” said many passengers booked on the Boeing 767’s flights to London were stranded in Harare while alternative arrangements were made.
Miss Cook said Mr. Wetherell, 55, was arrested at his Harare home and taken to the city’s main police station. Reporters Dumisani Muleya and Vincent Kahiya were arrested later and police were looking for a third reporter, Itai Dzamera, she said.
Zimbabwe Information Minister Jonathan Moyo, who also is acting transport minister, said Mr. Wetherell and the two reporters faced up to two years’ imprisonment for defaming Mr. Mugabe, the state Herald reported yesterday.
Mr. Mugabe does not have his own presidential jet and has often thrown Air Zimbabwe’s schedules into disarray by commandeering its planes.
Meanwhile, in another development yesterday, police arrested a senior member of the ruling party on charges he tried to prevent the arrest of two company directors accused of defrauding investors of billions of dollars, state television said.
Businessman Philip Chiyangwa is a provincial chairman for Mr. Mugabe’s ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) party.
Local media reported this week that he tried to block the arrest of two directors of asset-management firm ENG Capital on fraud charges involving more than $73 million.
The ENG directors are the first legal casualties of a crisis that has seen some banks grapple with liquidity crunches after a run on deposits by investors scared they might not survive a central bank crackdown on speculative currency trade.
Analysts say the crisis threatens the political careers and wealth of some of Mr. Mugabe’s top backers in the business world.
They say the veteran leader — battling an economic crisis blamed on government mismanagement — could crack down on corruption, including within ZANU-PF, to ease pressure on the ruling party ahead of parliamentary elections next year.
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