Financial Gazette (Harare)
2 August 2007
Harare — JUSTICE Minister Patrick Chinamasa and the Deputy Minister of Health and Child Welfare, Edwin Muguti, have clashed over whether or not Simon Mann, the suspected British mercenary detained at Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison needs to undergo surgery urgently, the High Court heard last week.
During an appeal hearing against a lower court's decision granting an application to extradite Mann to Equatorial Guinea to face charges of plotting a coup, defence lawyer Jonathan Samkange said Muguti had written to Chinamasa informing him that Mann must undergo a hernia operation urgently.
Muguti is one of Mann's four doctors.
However, state prosecutor Joseph Jagada told the court that Chinamasa had decided that the operation was not urgent.
"I have a letter here from the (Justice) Minister saying permission is denied," said Jagada.
The state and Mann's defence team have previously clashed over where the alleged mercenary should undergo surgery.
In previous hearings at the magistrate's court, Samkange said his client had chosen to be operated on at a private hospital, while Jagada insisted any operation be conducted at a government facility for security reasons.
At last week's appeal hearing, presiding judges Justice Rita Makarau and Justice Bharat Patel reserved judgment indefinitely.
Mann was arrested with 67 others at Harare International Airport in March 2004.
All members of the group were charged and convicted of violating the country's security and arms laws. All the others, except Mann have served their sentences and been released.
The mercenaries were accused of having been on their way to Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, to stage a coup. They denied the allegations.
Mann has submitted that his extradition would be in contravention of international statutes on torture, to which Zimbabwe is a signatory. He has cited treaties forbidding the extradition of any individual to a country where he or she would face either torture or an unfair trial.
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