The mayor of Bulawayo, Councillor David Coltart (CCC) has castigated Nick Mangwana, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting Services, for dismissing reports on the alleged abduction of CCC MP Takudzwa Ngadziore on Wednesday as “social media chatter”.
Ngadziore was allegedly chased and kidnapped by heavily armed suspected State agents while on his way to Parliament, taken to Mazowe where he was tortured, stripped naked, and injected with an unknown substance before he was dumped.
Mangwana was commenting on the alleged kidnapping for the first time more than 24 hours after it was reported.
In response, Coltart said Mangwana’s remarks “compounds the crimes committed by the regime” that he serves. Said Coltart:
Another utterly contemptuous statement. Systematic abductions and torture by State agents are crimes against humanity punishable in terms of international law.
For you to dismiss these serious allegations backed by video evidence as “social media chatter” compounds the crimes committed by the regime you serve.
Whilst of course formal reports must be laid the record shows that despite countless abductions, disappearances and torture committed by ZANU PF agents in its 43-year misrule of Zimbabwe, not one person has ever been convicted and served a jail term.
The last time, just a few weeks ago, a similar person was abducted and tortured, that person’s lawyers were arrested in utterly spurious charges of “obstructing justice”.
Those charges are being vigorously pursued against the lawyers but NOTHING has been done by the Police to arrest the people responsible for the original torture.
So your comment is a cynical ploy to deflect responsibility. But the regime you serve is responsible and will be held responsible for these outrageous and egregious crimes.
In 2020, MDC Alliance MP Joanna Mamombe and her two colleagues were allegedly abducted, tortured and dumped.
The three were later arrested on allegations of faking the kidnapping.
More: Pindula News