July 2001 Africa News Headlines

Monday, July 23, 2001 - Web posted at 12:40:15 GMT

Zim farmer arrested for 'inciting violence'

HARARE - One of Zimbabwe's most prominent farmers was arrested and detained in jail for allegedly inciting public violence against people illegally occupying his land, his lawyer said on Friday.

Jim Sinclair, 63, a former president of the Commercial Farmers Union and the Cattle Producers Association, denied the charge before a magistrate in the farming centre of Norton, about 40km south-west of Harare, and was freed on bail.

The charge, carrying a possible penalty of imprisonment, is likely to escalate racial tensions between the nation's 50 000 whites and supporters of the government's land seizure programme.

Lawyer Richard Wood said in a statement the charge stemmed from a June 12 incident in which ruling party militants occupying Sinclair's property were chased off, apparently by inhabitants of an adjoining peasant farming area who torched 12 of the militant's makeshift huts.

Sinclair, who also served on the management boards of the state abattoir enterprise, the Cold Storage Commission, the Forestry Commission and the government's railroad company, "emphatically denied any involvement in the incident".

He was held in a bare police cell on Thursday night, in midwinter in Zimbabwe, with 13 prisoners who were given seven blankets to share.

State prosecutors opposed bail on Friday, arguing Sinclair could interfere with witnesses and had been a fugitive from justice.

Amid death threats after the June 12 violence, Sinclair evacuated his farm but was easy to contact in Harare, where he is regarded as a high profile figure in agriculture and business, the statement said.

Sinclair was "such a prominent citizen with so much to lose it would be highly unlikely that he would incite violence or avoid his trial by absenting himself," it said.

His arrest came nearly a week after a white farmer in eastern Zimbabwe wasarrested for the alleged murder of an illegal occupier on his land.

Lawyers for Philip Bezuidenhout, 51, lodged an application in the Harare High Court on Friday for him to be freed on bail.

- Nampa-Sapa-AP

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