Farmers found bloodied, beaten
2008-06-30 23:25
Harare - An elderly Zimbabwean farmer, his wife and their son-in-law, who'd been kidnapped, were found along a stretch of road on Monday morning - bloodied and beaten.
They had been kidnapped from their farm in the Chegutu district on Sunday by heavily-armed men.
Mike Campbell, 75, was severely assaulted. He was concussed and his collar bone was broken. His wife, Angela, 66, had her arm broken in two places.
Their son-in-law, Ben Freeth, had cuts and bruises and had been beaten on the soles of his feet.
A friend of the family, Sue Marland, said all three had been admitted to hospital in Harare.
Indoctrination camp
Angela and Ben were due to be discharged on Monday afternoon, but Mike still had to undergo scans to assess the extent of his head injuries.
The kidnapping took place at exactly the same time as Robert Mugabe's re-inauguration as president of Zimbabwe.
"They were taken to an indoctrination camp (after being kidnapped from their farm in Mount Carmel)."
Marland said their attackers had threatened to shoot them if they didn't sign a document in which they undertook to withdraw a case lodged with the Southern African Development Community's tribunal.
Mike made history in December last year when he asked the tribunal in Windhoek to rule on the seizure of his farm, on which he had been since 1974.
This was the first time the tribunal had been approached to make this kind of decision.
The tribunal issued an interim order forbidding the Zimbabwean government from laying a hand on Campbell or his property until such time as the Zimbabwean High Court could hear the matter.
Marland said Gilbert Moyo, a Zanu-PF member infamous for his role in attacks on and intimidation of farmers in the area south-east of Harare, was in charge of Sunday's kidnapping.
'Common criminality'
He allegedly had performed a number of similar attacks in the past few months.
The Campbells and Freeth were dropped off in the early hours of Monday morning at a mining community at Kadoma, about 30km from Chigutu, where Freeth knocked at a door and phoned his wife, Laura.
AFP has reported police spokesperson Wayne Bvudzijena as saying that 16 people had been arrested over the attacks and 20 others were being sought.
He blamed the violence on "common criminality".
- Beeld