BBC
8th August 2018
Senior Zimbabwean opposition MDC Alliance official Tendai Biti was arrested after he reported to Zambian immigration officials at the Chirundu border post, about 350km north (217 miles) of the capital Harare, his lawyer Nqobizitha Mlilo has been quoted by Reuters news agency as saying.
“It seems the Zambian immigration officials alerted the Zimbabwean police and they effected an arrest,” Mr Mlilo added.
Mr Biti is the most senior MDC Alliance politician to be arrested since President Emmerson Mnangagwa took power in November after ousting long-serving ruler Robert Mugabe.
He had promised a new democratic era, but the security forces launched a crackdown on the opposition after it said its candidate Nelson Chamisa won last Monday’s elections.
MDC Alliance Senator David Coltart told the BBC it was “utterly appalling” that Mr Biti had been arrested.
No action has been taken against soldiers who “kill people in cold blood”, but Mr Biti, “one of our finest lawyers” and a former finance minister, was treated like a “fugitive from justice”, Mr Coltart said.
He added that the current political climate was no different to that under Mr Mugabe:
“There’s a clampdown. I’ve been speaking to many of my colleagues. There’s a real climate of fear in this country. Many of my colleagues have gone to ground. They are in safe houses. They’re not sleeping in their homes at night.”
Mr Coltart questioned the stance of the UK towards Mr Mnangagwa’s government:
“The question I put to the British government is, and those who might be wanting to favour this regime, they talk about a new dispensation. I don’t see anything new in this. I see all the tactics of Mugabe and all the tactics used by this regime for the last 38 years.”
At least six people were killed in clashes between security forces and opposition supporters in the capital, Harare, last Wednesday.