Torture trial test for Zimbabwe

Press, 6 September 1983, Page 16

Torture trial test for Zimbabwe

By

PAUL CORRIGAN

The former deputy commander of the Zimbabwean Air Force had put his arm around an accused fellow officer to comfort him, “as you would a child”, a lawyer told the High Court at Harare. Another, junior officer in the Air Force of Zimbabwe told the court that he had tried to commit suicide in a police cell by slashing a wrist with broken glass from his spectacles, and then had written a message in his own blood on the floor protesting his innocence. They, and three other white officers charged with aiding the sabotage of 13 aircraft at Thornhill air base last year, said that they made confessions of guilt as the result of mistreatment while in custody. Mr Justice Dumbutshena, the first black Zimbabwean to sit on the Bench of his country’s High Court, believed them and acquitted them. Nevertheless, the State re arrested them and took them back to jail. Seven Hunter fighter-bombers, one Hawk jet trainer, and one Reims-Cessna propeller-driven light reconnaissance plane were destroyed, and one Hunter and three Hawks were damaged when incendiary devices exploded at Thornhill, Zimbabwe’s main Air Force base, on July 25, last year. The financial loss was put at more than sZim7 million. The Hawks, which can usefully double as a light strike aircraft, were brand-new. Some weeks later the Air Force’s deputy commander, Air Vice-Marshal Hugh Slatter, the service’s Operations chief, Air Commodore Philip Pile; the commander of the Air Force Regiment, Wing Commander John Cox; Wing Commander Peter Briscoe, chief of training; and Air Lieutenants Barrington Lloyd and Neville Weir, were arrested. The State’s case was that the six had formed a “sabotage committee” in December 1980, and had conspired with agents “of a foreign Power” to leave Zimbabwe defenceless and vulnerable. They had actively aided three South African saboteurs who may have used road and air transport to enter and leave Zimbabwe undetected, said the Prosecutor, Mr Honor Mkushi.

He said that the accused had freely admitted their guilt, and any allegations that they had been mistreated under questioning were a “complete fabrication.” The defence put by Mr Harry Ognall, Q.C., of Britain, was that the six had been mistreated in custody, they had been denied access to lawyers before making warned-and-cautioned statements, that the statements were false, and that the statements had not been given voluntarily. On May 31, Air Marshal Slatter told the court that he had been arrested on August 31 by officers of the Central Intelligence Organisation. Over the next 13 days, he said, he had been driven hundreds of miles to different police stations where he had been questioned about the “sabotage committee”. The police had told him that he had been implicated by two other officers, Wing Commanders Cox and Briscoe. He said that he was told he had one last chance to talk or he would be handed over to people who would make him. He had then been driven, handcuffed and hooded, to an area which he concluded was in the bush. Air Marshal Slatter said that he had been forced to lie on the seat of the car. “I felt two little pricks at the top and base of my back ... Electric current was passed through my body with increasing strength so my body went into spasms ... my body jumped around on the seat.” During the torture, he said, someone had shouted: “This is the sth Brigade.” “I decided that I could not take that sort of punishment indefinitely . ..” The next day, he said, he had written out a totally false incriminating statement. He had resolved to commit suicide if faced with more torture. Wing Commander Briscoe was also tortured. A lawyer who first represented Air Marshal Slatter soon after his arrest told the court on June 13 that he had been shocked at the two men’s appearance when he visited them in prison last year. Michael Hartmann said that the two had “a look of sheer terror in their eyes.” They were trembling

and ashen-faced and very nervous. “Wing Commander Briscoe at one time expressed horror at his treatment. Air Vice-Marshal Slatter put his arm around him to comfort him as you would a child . (On February 13, Mr Hartmann and another lawyer, Rhett Gardner, were found guilty of contempt of court and fined ?Zimloo each after asserting that Air Marshal Slatter and Air Commodore Pile had been tortured before signing incriminating statements.) On June 30, a surgeon, Mr George Patrikios, told the court that he had examined Air Marshal Slatter and Wing Commander Briscoe in September, last year. He said that he had found on their backs healing puncture wounds surrounded by brown marks. In his opinion these marks were compatible with shocks having been administered through needles puncturing the skin, with muscle contraction causing blood vessels to burst. On July 1, an anaesthetist gave evidence on the consequences of electric shock treatment. Mr Michael James said that a 12-volt car battery could inflict a severe shock if administered through needles or clips attached to the skin. He also corroborated the conclusions’ drawn by Mr Patrikios. On June 16, Air Lieutenant Lloyd told the Court how, after being subjected to electric-shock torture he had tried to commit suicide. He believed that the torture was likely to continue. He barricaded his cell and slashed a wrist with glass from his spectaeles He told the High Court that he did not want his suicide to be interpreted as a confession and he wrote in his blood on the cell floor: “C.I.D. torture with batteries.” Air Lieutenant Lloyd said that he had been detained soon after the sabotage and then released. During 15 days at liberty he had been urged by relatives to flee the country. “I rejected it out of hand. I was an innocent man,” he told the court. On June 8, Wing Commander Cox told the court that he had been tortured, too. An object “like

a red-hot wire brush" had been rubbed between his buttocks and then he was subjected to electricshock treatment. On June 20, Air Lieutenant Weir, a former member of the Rhodesian Special Air Service, told the court that his treatment in custody had been correct at first, and he had been allowed to see a lawyer. But, after signing a statement of exoneration for an Air Force board of inquiry which had been set up as a result of sabotage, he said that conditions changed. He said that for four days afterwards, until he agreed to make a false statement, he had been threatened, assaulted, and beaten with a 30cm length of metal pipe while being kept in leg irons and without bedding. On June 27, Air Commodore Pile told the High Court that he had not been tortured or assaulted before making an alleged confession, but that as a result of continuous interrogation, “my mental state was something else all together.” Towards the end of the trial the officer in charge of the investigation, Chief Superintendent Richard Murembah, denied that five of the officers had been tortured. He denied that he and detectives under him had: unlawfully extorted confessions from the officers; undermined the officers’ will by a mixture of isolation, threats, inducements and, when that failed, electric-shock torture; denied them immediate legal representation by keeping their whereabouts secret and lying to their lawyers; and, withheld information from the Attorney-Gen-eral and Director of Public Prosecutions when lawyers were petitioning the High Court for access. During the trial, evidence was presented which revealed that an internal Air Force board of inquiry had found that the saboteurs had had “inside” help and that the security measures in force at Thornhill had been totally inadequate to detect, prevent, or deter the saboteurs. The board was chaired by Air Commodore Pile, and Wing Commander Briscoe was also a member. Air Commodore Pile told the court that he had suspected a black air lieutenant of complicity in the sabotage, and before his arrest he was about to warn Air

Lieutenant Lloyd that he would recommend that he be court-mar-tialled because of security lapses at Thornhill. He said that he did not suspect Air Lieutenant Lloyd, who was the base security officer, of complicity in the sabotage. He also had been considering recommending that Thornhill’s white base commander and a black squadron leader also be court-martialled. Wing Commander Briscoe told the court that the board had asked the police to arrest Air Lieutenant Weir, whom the court was told later had before July 25 been offered a job as a pilot in the South African Air Force. The court was also told by the former commander of the Air Force, Air Marshal Norman Walsh, that he had viewed Air Marshal Slatter, Air Commodore Pile, and Wing Commander Briscoe as potential successors. The courts’ practice of acquitting defendants on the basis of insufficient evidence, as happened last week, is likely to bring the Zimbabwean judiciary more and more into conflict with the Government. Such acquittals have led the Government, and notably the Home Affairs Minister, Dr Herbert Ushewokunze, to criticise the judiciary several times. In the House of Assembly on July 13, last year, Dr Ushewokunze accused Zimbabwe’s judges and magistrates of being prejudiced against the Government and of handing down “perverted judgements”, alleging that there was an unholy alliance between the bench, reactionary lawyers and certain foreign countries. In an interview published in “The Herald” newspaper on February 16, Dr Ushewokunze criticised the judiciary for applying double standards, and he argued that the courts were now acquitting people who under the former white regime would have been convicted. After the acquittal (and redetention) of two senior men in Joshua Nkomo’s old guerrilla army, Dr Ushewokunze said on June 1 that the “inherited judiciary” was “not in tune with the Government”, and he also accused the courts of “appearing to sow the seeds of revolt against the Government”, and of "encouraging the growth of the dissident element.”