JUSTICE IN ZIMBABWE 44 ____________________________________________________________________ 2002 High Court judge, Mr Justice Matika, suspended the deportation order and referred the matter to the Supreme Court. Earlier during the course of the trial on 26 June 2002 The Herald newspaper published a story in which it stated that the State intended to institute an investigation into the conduct of the prosecutor who had prosecuted in the Meldrum case. The prosecutor had indicated during the course of the trial that if Mr Meldrum was convicted, the State would not seek his imprisonment as he had not created the story but had simply derived it from another newspaper. The Herald strongly implied that he had acted irregularly in making this statement to the court. In suggesting this, The Herald was entirely incorrect. There was nothing wrong in the prosecutor making this intimation to the court about what sentence the State would seek in the event of a conviction. Refusal by police to execute warrant67 Rusape police refused to execute a warrant for the arrest of a Mr Mhiripiri, which was issued by a provincial magistrate. Mr Mhiripiri is a ZANU (PF) district co-ordinating committee chairman. The warrant was issued after Mr Mhiripiri, who was on remand on a charge of committing acts of violence, failed to appear in court. The police claimed not to have received the warrant but court officials insisted that the police were served with the papers. The charge was that Mr Mhiripiri had perpetrated acts of political violence in the Headlands resettlement areas. He was alleged to have gone to a farm with youths and assaulted legally resettled farmers. He had accused the resettled farmers of being MDC supporters. Topic 3 3. THE POLITICISATION OF THE POLICE The Commissioner’s partisanship In January 2001 the Commissioner of Police cast off the cloak of political neutrality and announced: “I support ZANU (PF) because it is the ruling party.” He said he