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HARARE - Zimbabwe police yesterday charged the chief spokesman for Zimbabwe's main opposition party with murder over the stabbing death of his wife, but his lawyer said he had not intended to kill her.

Learnmore Jongwe, a member of parliament, is the information secretary of the Movement for Democratic Change, the strongest challenger to President Robert Mugabe's ruling Zanu-PF party.

Police mounted a hunt for Jongwe after his wife died in hospital on Saturday following the Friday stabbing incident at their home in a Harare suburb.

Jongwe turned himself in to police yesterday morning in the company of his lawyer Jonathan Samkange, who said his client had stabbed his wife of nearly a year in anger during a domestic dispute.

"He has been warned and cautioned. The charge is murder. He is not denying that he stabbed her, but he is denying that he intended to murder her," Samkange told Reuters.

Jongwe (28) is the public voice and an executive committee member of the MDC which was formed in 1999. A lawyer by profession, he became one of Zimbabwe's youngest lawmakers when he was elected in parliamentary elections two years ago.

MDC officials were not available to comment on the incident. - Nampa-Reuters

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