Accused Minister refused bail

Press, 9 August 1980, Page 8

Accused Minister refused bail

NZPA-Reuter Salisbury - A - judge in the Zimbabwe High Court has re— . fused bail to Edgar Tekere, the radical Manpower Planning Minister, charged with the murder of a white farmer. After a three-hour hearing in camera, the judge, Anthony Smith, told reporters that a bail application by Tekere’s lawyers had been turned down. He said he would give reasons for his decision today. Tekere, aged 43, No. 3 in the party led by the Prime Minister (Mr Robert Mugabe), was remanded in custody after the police

charged him with murdering a white farmer, Gerald -Adams, aged 68, last ■ Nlonday." ’ ’.■•. The police said that it would be about two weeks before the case came to the High Court provided there was no political interference with the investigation. Mr Adams was found dead at his homestead south-west of Salisbury. He had been shot in the back after a group of armed men launched a mi-litary-type assault against the farm, witnesses Said. Police sources said that the shooting followed an incident the previous night, when former guer-

rillas traded shots with soldiers of the former Rhodesian Army guarding one of their old camps on Mr Adams’s farm.

Tekere, is secretary-gen-eral of Zimbabwe African National Union — Patriotic Front and is viewed as leader of a hard-line faction that sees Mr Mugabe’s attitude to Zimbabwe’s 200,000 whites as too conciliatory, party sources said.

A Western diplomat said, “The problem is that his followers may see hiS arrest as a conspiracy between the whites and Mugabe to get rid of him and soften the party line. That could spell trouble.”