TOP human rights activist Jestina Mukoko has exposed the State’s hand in the country’s many enforced disappearances after revealing that Vice-President Kembo Mohadi knew where she was kept captive following her abduction in 2008.
Mohadi was Home Affairs minister at the time.
Mukoko, who is director for human rights organisation Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP), was abducted from her home in Norton by armed State security agents at around 5am on December 3, 2008.
Her whereabouts remained unknown until 20 days later.
Speaking during an event organised by the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum and various women’s groups last week, Mukoko said Mohadi was the first government official to assure her family that she was alive.
“It is the support of family, friends and many other people that kept me going. I had a very strong brother who took it upon himself to search for me,” she said.
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Mukoko said her brother had a meeting with Mohadi, who revealed to him that she was still alive.
“He (the brother) said he was supposed to have a meeting on that particular day with the then Home Affairs minister, who is now the second Vice-President, Kembo Mohadi.
“He told Mohadi that he was late for that meeting because he had gone to the morgue to look for me. But Mohadi responded to him saying, ‘You are looking for her in the wrong places’.
“He said for the first time after so many days, he went out and drank alcohol, because he knew I was alive somewhere because the Minister of Home Affairs had said it — that he was looking for me in the wrong places.”
Mukoko later appeared in court on December 24, 2008, where she revealed that she was tortured by her abductors.
Information minister Jenfan Muswere and ministry secretary Ndavaningi Mangwana were not picking calls yesterday.
Justice minister Ziyambi Ziyambi was also not picking calls.
Mukoko was later accused of attempting to overthrow the then President Robert Mugabe’s government after spending about three months at Chikurubi Female Prison in Harare.
The Supreme Court ordered a permanent stay of criminal proceedings against her in September 2009.
Mukoko is one of several human rights and political activists who have been abducted and tortured by suspected State security agents as the enforced disappearances of government critics has become an established pattern since independence.
Some victims of enforced disappearances like Patrick Nabanyama and Itai Dzamara are yet to be accounted for following their abduction in 2000 and 2015, respectively.
International human rights activists have repeatedly called on the government to ratify the 2007 Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance to prevent abductions defined in international law as a crime against humanity.