has been alleged some twenty different persons were involved.” While convicting the men, and following the Supreme Court decisions in S v Michael and S v Kinfe, the trial judge took into account the torture and sentenced each of them to an effective 12 months in prison, back-dated six months to the time of their arrest. Thus after a further six months they were released and deported. The State appealed against the sentences as being too lenient. In 2001, after they had already been deported, the appeal was heard and the new Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku ruled that they ought to have served five years in jail. [Sources: BBC News 13 September 1999; Blanchard and Others v Minister of Justice 1999 (2) ZLR 24 (S); S v Blanchard and Others 1999 (2) ZLR 168 (H); S v Blanchard and Others 2001 (2) ZLR (S).] Here, the trial court specifically recorded the failure of the State to properly investigate detailed complaints of torture. Attorney General Chinamasa was soon promoted to Minister of Justice. CASE STUDY FOUR A series of incidents involving kidnapping, murder, mob violence, arson, police corruption and torture are associated with the late Cain Nkala, beginning a week before the June 2000 parliamentary elections, when war veterans kidnapped MDC polling agent Patrick Nabanyama from his home in Bulawayo. Nabanyana was apparently murdered but his body has never been found. Following a national outcry the kidnappers, whose identities were known, were finally arrested and charged with murder in 2001. One of the accused was Cain Nkala, a war veteran leader in Bulawayo, and there were signs that he was going to reveal which senior Zanu-PF leaders had ordered the kidnapping and killing. In November 2001 Nkala himself was kidnapped from his home in circumstances very similar to the disappearance of Nabanyama, but within days several MDC members were arrested and charged. On State television Vice President Msika said MP David Coltart was behind the war veteran’s kidnapping; Nkala’s body was found in a shallow grave a few days later, allegedly as a result of “information” from some of the arrested MDC members who were shown on State television “indicating” the whereabouts of the corpse. The next day a Zanu-PF mob led by former political leader Dumiso Dabengwa and escorted by the police marched through the streets of Bulawayo. The MDC offices were burnt down, and the mob stopped the fire brigade from attending the blaze. MDC supporters retaliated, setting fire to a Zanu-PF building and fighting with riot police. MDC members charged with Nkala’s murder included another MP, Fletcher DuliniNcube, all of whom were kept in custody under poor conditions for many months. The trial of six of them began in February 2003: Sonny Masera, Army Zulu, Remember Moyo, Kethani Sibanda, Sazini Mpofu and Dulini-Ncube. The MP had been denied treatment for his diabetes in custody and as a direct result later had to have an eye surgically removed. The other arrested war veterans had been tried and acquitted of Nabanyama’s murder, claiming that they had indeed kidnapped him but then handed him over to Nkala. Nkala was dead, Nabanyama’s body had never been found, and there was no evidence to link them to the latter’s death. They were never subsequently charged with kidnapping. At the Cain Nkala murder trial the six MDC men maintained that the police extracted the evidence against them under torture, and a trial-within-a-trial was held to determine the 11