SW Radio Africa news - The Independent Voice of Zimbabwe
The MDC-T activist who was abducted and tortured last week has revealed that a ZANU PF headman, who is also the district chairman in Mhondoro, ordered the attack as punishment for being a polling agent with the MDC-T. In a video posted online, Tsaurai Makadaya and some of his relatives, describe the terrifying events that unfolded the morning after last Wednesday’s election, when family members realized he had not returned home. Still in great pain and recovering from the ordeal, Makadaya narrates how he was abducted by a four thugs in a twin cab after asking one of them for directions. But what is most worrying is that he says the brutal beating he suffered was ordered by Geoffrey Mutete, headman for Maruma village and ZANU PF’s district chairman. Makadaya says he was beaten with an iron bar on his knee and when he lost consciousness, the gang covered his face with a bag and drove him to an unknown location. A hot iron bar was used to torture him and he ate only one meal in five days. As a youth leader in the MDC-T, the gang accused Makadaya of preventing other youths from attending ZANU PF meetings. They also said they had received orders to kill him from headman Mutete. He was eventually dumped about 12 km from his homestead in Mashonaland West, only after Mutete decided not to have him killed. Makadaya’s aunt describes how she dialled his mobile phone when he went missing. She says the people who answered boasted that they did not care about the police or any authority and instructed her to contact Geoffrey Mutete. Francesca Minda, the MDC-T councillor for the area, also accused Geoffrey Mutete of threatening MDC-T supporters, by saying “tinoku urayayi”, which means we will kill you. Mutete, who is notoriously known as Baghdad, is also a traditional headman and is supposed to be the caretaker of his people.↧