Zimbabwe: The Face of Torture and Organised Violence admissibility of this evidence. The police denied that any of the men had been ill treated in any way. In March 2004 the trial judge ruled that the evidence was indeed inadmissible. In her 60-page judgment she meticulously analysed the evidence of police officers involved in the case, contrasting their stories with that of the accused and each other, and including examinations of written statements and confessions, police diaries and logs, video evidence and other exhibits, all of which had emerged in the trial-withina-trial. She found the police had deliberately made false entries in their records, altered written statements, lied to the court, been evasive in their evidence, and had fundamentally violated the most basic human rights of the men on trial. In uncompromising language she threw out the incriminating statements, indications and even video recordings with the concluding comment: “The evidence of the State witnesses who are police officers is fraught with conflict and inconsistencies. The witnesses conducted themselves in a shameless fashion and displayed utter contempt for the due administration of justice to the extent that they were prepared to indulge in what can only be described as works of fiction…The magnitude of their complicity was such as to put paid [sic] to this court attaching any weight to the truth or accuracy of their statements.” As a result the evidence of the accused was accepted, some of which included the following accounts of torture: Remember Moyo was hit by a rifle-butt, pushed out of the back of a moving police vehicle while shackled in leg-irons and handcuffs, had his head banged against a car wheel, was held on the ground on his back with his legsspread eagled while Detective Superintendent Matira took running jumps landing on his genitals with booted feet; he bled from his nose and ears, lost consciousness and was so badly injured he could hardly walk; later he was further assaulted in a cell, kept stripped naked, shackled and beaten by more policemen, a former MDC member Ian Sibanda and war veterans including Jabulani Sibanda, chairman of the Bulawayo War Veterans Association. Khetani Sibanda was kidnapped by persons unknown, blindfolded and taken to an unknown house where he was detained, assaulted and threatened by men who later revealed themselves as CIO; he was forced to adopt a story implicating other MDC members in Nkala’s murder with the express purpose of discrediting the MDC; he was forced to repeat all the details and learn them by heart, his resistance broken by repeated assaults and threats of harm to his relatives, particularly his parents; this went on for three days; at night he was taken to the burial site as part of this fabrication; at one point D/Supt Matira pulled out a firearm and threatened to shoot him; at another stage he was taken to Ncema dam near Esigodoni and told that if he didn’t co-operate he would be fed to the crocodiles; he was deprived of food, water and sleep. Sibanda was one of those who had been shown on State television “indicating” the place where Nkala’s body had been found. Sazini Mpofu was with his girlfriend when arrested and they were both assaulted by being kicked and punched; he was driven around Bulawayo for many hours while being assaulted in and out of the vehicle, and at the police station; all the time he was being forced to implicate others; he was also assaulted before being taken on “indications.”He too was shown on State television “revealing”where the dead man had been placed. [Sources: The State v Sonny Nicholas Masera and Five Others, HH 50-2004, 2 March 2004, judgement of Mrs Justice Sandra Mungwira; ZWNEWS report 6 March 2004] None of the torturers have been prosecuted, nor any of the police officers disciplined. 12